


learn to live (by practicing living)

by awakeanddreaming



Series: chosen to be a dancer (and with that I live my life) [2]
Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: F/F, wlw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:15:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 52,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21845023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awakeanddreaming/pseuds/awakeanddreaming
Summary: Tessa never thought she’d fall in love so easily, but she does. She falls and uses the momentum of it to propel herself forward, trusting her body to catch her—just like Emmy had taught her in the first class Tessa took with her.a love story continued.
Relationships: Scott Moir & Tessa Virtue, Scott Moir/Tessa Virtue, Tessa Virtue/Original Female Character(s)
Series: chosen to be a dancer (and with that I live my life) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1573825
Comments: 58
Kudos: 66





	1. dance is a song of the body

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! I’m back. I’ve been chipping away at this steadily since I first posted the original piece back in September. I’ve decided to post this work in three chapters in order to break it up a bit.
> 
> I was so hesitant about that first piece in this series, unsure what the general reaction would be but I was met with such kind comments and words of encouragement. So many asked for more from this verse and I couldn’t help but dive in, having already created a layered backstory for my characters. 
> 
> Emmy has found herself a very special place in my heart, I love her so dearly and I hope that you all become just as endeared to her as I have. She’s such a special character and I loved getting to explore this budding relationship, but also Tessa’s friendship with Scott and how absolutely beautiful and supportive it is. 
> 
> I would like to thank peacefulboo and only_because3 not only for betaing this but for putting up with me and my constant questions and need for reassurance. E for being an amazing sounding board and idea giver and C for constantly insisting on “more” and pushing me to be better. Thank you K for letting me babble at you while building this world and being so, so encouraging. 
> 
> The title is from the Martha Graham quote “ I believe that we learn by practice. Whether it means to learn to dance by practicing dancing or to learn to live by practicing living, the principles are the same.”
> 
> I will end this note again with the note that VM are not endgame in this work, though they have a wonderful beyond words friendship that I only hope to do justice.

Tessa never thought she’d fall in love so easily, but she does. She falls and uses the momentum of it to propel herself forward, trusting her body to catch her—just like Emmy had taught her in the first class Tessa took with her. It doesn’t take long, after she finally decides to go for it, to open herself up to a relationship. It isn’t long before her lips are itching to curl around those three words every time she sees Emmy. Maybe, she thinks, it’s because she was already halfway there before anything even happened, before the Olympics, before, probably, she even kissed her for the first time. 

She falls in love easily, but being in love isn’t always easy. There are bumps and bruises as she learns how to land, but she wouldn’t change any of it. Every up and down is worth it. 

**

The second time they kiss is the push that truly sets the fall in motion.

After their win, her and Scott’s, he’d steered her over toward where Emmy stood waiting with her mom and Jordan, a comforting hand on the small of her back. She thinks he may have been giving her a pep talk, something about how she needed to just let go and go for it, but she could hardly hear him over the noise of the crowd and the thrumming of her own heart in her ears and the mix of giddiness and exhaustion from their performance earlier. 

She’d hugged her mom first, who kissed her cheek and smiled brightly, full of pride. Then Jordan who held her tightly. “I’m so proud of you Sam,” she said, squeezing her. “You did it!” Then more quietly, pulling her in a little closer and gesturing her head ever so slightly toward Emmy, “She’s great, Sam. I really like her and I’m so happy for you, for all of it.” 

Tessa pulled away from Jordan and could do nothing but smile, she didn’t bother saying there was nothing going on—yet—because she thinks it might have been a lie anyways. She’d asked Emmy to come all the way to Korea to watch her, and she really had meant it in more than just a friendly way, far more than just as their choreographer. And Emmy had come without second thought, willingly spending time with Tessa’s family while Tessa and Scott had retreated into their bubble, preparing for today. She’d never once questioned or complained. She was here for her, taking everything in stride and smiling the whole way and that wasn’t nothing. It was everything. 

Finally, after patiently waiting her turn, Emmy wrapped Tessa up in her arms. “I told you you’d win,” she said with just a hint of a smirk. 

“I really want to kiss you,” she whispered into Emmy’s hair, where her face was buried. 

Emmy pulled back with the warmest smile, shaking her head, looking around the crowded room, and then back at Tessa. “Later,” she said softly. “You just won the Olympics, you and Scott. Now you have a lot of press and a lot of celebrating to do. With Scott, with your family, your team...we can celebrate later. Just us. I promise. Right now is about your win.”

She was right. And Tessa felt her heart grow even fonder of Emmy, of how well she knew her. Tessa was all too aware of the people and the cameras around them, half a dozen lenses and eyes trained on her at any given moment. And even if she were ready to come out to the world, to publicly admit this part of herself that still felt so new, and so personal, now wouldn’t be the time. This time, this was to celebrate her and Scott’s career, their win and everything that went with that—the twenty years of hard work and friendship behind them. She wouldn't want her personal life to be up for public consumption, especially not in a way that overshadowed this moment. Today was about the Olympics. She and Emmy, they had time. 

“Why are you perfect?” Tessa laughed. 

“I am definitely not perfect. You just don’t know me well enough, yet,” Emmy said with a wink, giving her one more tight hug. “But you, both of you, were perfect today. I’m so proud. Proud of both of you, and proud to have had even a small part in all of it.” 

“Your part was far from small,” Tessa said, holding her just a bit longer. “We wouldn’t be here without you.”

Then there was press—so much press, asking invasive questions and focusing on their chemistry and how they play off each other on ice and whether or not it’s real, or why it isn’t. It’s of course speculation that they’ve grown accustomed to, questions that they’ve answered a dozen or more times over the course of their career, but it doesn’t stop her from being annoyed at the shift in focus from their actual skating and hard work. Maybe more annoyed than usual because she can picture a certain red headed girl waiting for her. They ask about Emmy too, about how close they seem to their choreographer—a special bond one of the reporters calls it, bringing up how Emmy had been seen in the stands watching and she almost laughs—and she feels an overwhelming surge of protectiveness for Emmy and her privacy. 

Scott, of course, is Scott and doesn’t help. He makes an off the cuff comment about how well Tessa works with Emmy and the potential for future collaborations, she thinks he may have winked, and her cheeks turn the same colour as her Canada jacket. 

But then he also waxes poetic about Tessa and her beauty, her strength as a performer and her steadiness as a partner. He is nothing but his usual supportive self, pushing her into the spotlight while he steps back to show her off. He does this because it’s him, and as cocky as he can come off, he doesn’t like the attention to be on himself. And he loves her in his very Scott way, just like she loves him. He’d hyped up his other friends and teammates too. It’s who he is. But she’s his partner, his best friend, and he’s her biggest fan, just like she is his—she’s who he has most opportunity to speak so highly of. Also, they just won the damn Olympics together so it is perfectly okay to be pretty damn proud and pretty sappy. To anyone else it seems like more, but it’s just him and she knows this, anyone who knows them understand this. So she rolls her eyes and smiles at him fondly.

However, their relationship is strange to anyone who doesn’t know them intimately, even to those that do it can seem odd at times. When they say things like they care deeply for each other, that they truly do love each other and love performing together—portraying romance, sometimes, being sexy and flirty on ice—but there really is nothing romantic between them, it is entirely true. Even if it seems baffling to others. Those feelings just aren’t there. She isn’t attracted to him, she loves him, but not like that. Even if once upon a time she wanted to, thought it would make things simpler. She wouldn’t change herself, not now. Besides they have so much of each other anyways, being together romantically too, would be too much. It might risk crushing them beneath its weight—if she weren’t entirely gay.

Sometimes she feels guilty about that, that she’s letting people down in this. Scott, their fans, sometimes their families who pushed them together when they were little, the whole of Canada who wants them to be in love. Everyone wants their beautiful fairytale love story to be true, and she can’t give them that, not without sacrificing herself and she’d learned a long time ago she will not do that. Maybe, she thinks, they should have changed their skating to alter their narrative, throw the proverbial platonic blanket over it. But that isn’t them. It never has been. They have chemistry on the ice because they both love what they do, it’s their place of total togetherness—in a weird way they are kind of like soulmates. 

Besides, Tessa likes feeling sexy on ice while she dances, she likes feeling powerful while she performs, she likes portraying romances and making people fall in love with the stories they create. It’s what she loves most about ice dance and her partnership with Scott. It’s about what they can create and how they can make people feel—also, being the best at it.

After press, there was celebrating with family—Emmy weaving herself easily into the fray of Virtues and Moirs, making Scott’s brothers laugh with stories of Scott’s dance antics, and charming her mom and Jordan with easy conversation. Then they celebrated with Team Canada. There was a party and drinking and dancing on stage with the band, while they sang her favourite song. She got to let loose like she hadn’t in a really long time. But this wasn’t like after their last Olympics, where she drank too much, trying to drown out second place and let loose in a different way, Scott doing much of the same. This was a happy letting go, relaxing with a beer or two and her fellow teammates, with a different kind of celebration on the back of her mind the entire time. 

Now, an entire day and a half after they won she gets to have it. She’s in Emmy’s hotel room, the same hotel where her and Scott’s families are staying. She’s inexplicably nervous, feeling like they are picking up on a conversation left unfinished from months ago. She’s also nervous that Emmy’s been, for lack of a better way of putting it, waiting for her for months and she doesn’t want to disappoint. Before she has a chance to overthink everything, Emmy grabs her by the hands, rubbing her thumbs over the tops of them. 

“Hi,” she says softly, voice just barely floating to Tessa’s ears. “So, how does an Olympic gold medalist want to celebrate?” 

Tessa sucks in a deep breath, but smiles. “Can I kiss you now?” she asks, picking up their conversation from the previous day. 

Emmy doesn’t respond but instead leans in to press her lips to Tessa’s. One of her hands stays intertwined with Tessa’s, the other runs up her arm and across her shoulders to find its way into her hair as she pulls Tessa in to deepen the kiss. And there it is, the moment Tessa starts falling, allowing herself to seek out more, feeding a part of herself she’s hardly allowed herself to explore to this point and it’s everything. It’s as electric as it is comforting. As sexy as it is sweet. 

Kissing Emmy, knowing that the Olympics aren’t hanging over her, knowing that she wants this completely is a whole new experience. It's the same seeping warmth as before, but it’s also the crackling fireworks she’d always imagined. Her hands desperately fumbling for and clutching at the hem of Emmy’s sweater to pull it over her head. Tessa isn’t sure she’s ever experienced this kind of desire before, outside of her drive and desire to be the best at skating, to win. Emmy simply smiles against her lips and lets Tessa set the pace. It’s probably the most free, and most herself Tessa has ever felt.

They break apart only when Tessa’s hands are gripped around the bottom hem of Emmy’s shirt, pulling it over her head. Her hands finding the bare skin of Emmy’s back as she pulls her in again, needy for the contact. If she never had to leave the blissful bubble of this South Korean hotel room, she wouldn’t.

**

The next morning she and Scott agree to meet for breakfast before their next round of press. In a departure from their norm, Tessa is late and Scott is waiting for her, smirking as he sees her approach. 

“Good night, Virtch?” he smiles, bumping his shoulder against hers. “I heard you didn’t stay in the village.” 

Her eyebrows shoot up as she glares at him. “Scott!” she shakes her head, but can’t hide her own blush and small smile. 

“What?” he smirks again. “You look happy. Getting laid looks good on you, kiddo.” All she can manage is deeper blush and another shake of her head. He laughs, his big belly laugh, before reaching out to run his thumb under her lip, showing her a smudge of lipstick that she hadn’t noticed. “Maybe a bit of a good morning too, eh?” 

“Shut up,” she grits out through her teeth, searching the area around them for anyone who may be within earshot, blessedly there is no one. “It was a very good night and a very good morning… the best,” she sighs, rolling her eyes at him. “Happy now?” 

“Very,” his smile is radiant and he wraps an arm around her shoulder. “You deserve it, and I am happy for you, is that okay?”

She shakes her head and bites at her lip, holding back a small laugh. “Yes,” she says. Even though the way he demonstrates his support can border on annoying and a little too close, she loves it anyways. Loves that she always has him in her corner, that he wants nothing more than her happiness—even if she doesn’t want to divulge the details of her sex life with him. 

“Alright,” he says, letting her go and clapping his hands together. “Let’s get you fed and then answer a bunch of super uncomfortable questions, shall we?”

She sighs, deep and heavy and closes her eyes, breathing and counting in and out to three. “Okay, let’s do it,” she says, once she’s opened her eyes again. 

**

Emmy kisses a line up Tessa’s shoulder, where her sweater has slipped down, to her neck and back down before settling her chin there. Tessa is sitting cross legged on Emmy’s couch with her computer open on her lap. Emmy is tucked in behind her, glancing over her shoulder at the screen. 

“Do you ever think of taking a break sometimes?” she asks, as she looks over Tessa’s upcoming commitments with her. 

“And what just relax?” Tessa laughs, “I don’t think I know how.” 

“Hmm,” Emmy says, returning her lips to Tessa’s skin, fingers skimming delicately under the hem of her sweater. “I think you do,” she chuckles as Tessa sinks into her a bit more. “You need to take more breaks to just do nothing.” 

Tessa laughs and she can feel Emmy’s body shift behind her, her lips back against her skin. Tessa, relaxes into her touch, closing her eyes against the light of her laptop. “And what would I do all day?” 

Emmy laughs. “Sometimes when I have a day off, I sleep for twelve hours and then watch Netflix for the other twelve…it’s why the sloth is my favourite animal.”

“You aren’t that lazy,” Tessa says, leaning back against Emmy, settling her weight against her. 

“I am. My job is constantly moving...when I’m not dancing or doing school I like doing nothing,” she wraps her arms around Tessa’s middle and kisses her neck. “Or this, this is nice...still lazy, but nice.” 

Tessa hums in agreement. “Very nice.”

“See, you’re relaxing,” she leans over and points at the screen. “Really though, if you schedule that Bonlook shoot for the tenth and see if you can move that meeting here to the 17th when you already have the Nivea event a few blocks away, you’ll have six whole days off...in Montreal.” 

“Yeah?” Tessa questions, a smile growing on her lips as Emmy rubs small circles on her hip with her thumb. 

“Yeah,” Emmy breathes in a deep measured breath. “You could stay here...with me.” 

“For six days?”

“For whenever you’re in Montreal,” Emmy says. “I’m asking if you want to stay with me, whenever you’re here.”

Tessa breathes in deeply and finds herself nodding before she fully processes how she feels about this, her body reacting before her brain has had time. “Yeah,” she says softly. Going with her gut, choosing not to overthink this. 

She could be scared, and think that they’ve only been actually dating for a little more than a month and that’s moving a little quickly. But it doesn’t feel too fast. She wants to be a fixture in Emmy’s life, likes that Emmy wants her with her in her space whenever she can have her. She likes the idea of having some of her things too, in this cozy little apartment that she feels so comfortable in. She should be scared, but she isn’t. This feels right, perfect even, or as close to perfection as exists. 

**

Emmy has all the furniture pushed out of the way in her living room, leaving the floor bare where she sits smack dab in the middle of it, eyes closed, listening to the music that plays from her bluetooth speaker. Tessa is curled up on the couch, which has been pushed almost all the way to the door of the kitchen, watching her. Emmy’s been asked to choreograph and dance for a music video. It isn’t the first one she’s done since graduating from York, but definitely the most well known artist and the first time she gets to choreograph entirely herself. Even if Emmy won’t admit it, having choreographed Tessa and Scott’s gold medal winning dance, that much to all their surprise won over the world has raised her status in the dance community just a bit. 

When the song plays through once and starts again Emmy starts to move, eyes still closed. Tessa knows she’s visualizing the story that she wants to share. Picturing the ways that she can move her body to express the emotions she feels when she listens to the music. It’s an intense, beautiful process to watch. Tessa can see each emotion as it crosses her face before she moves to capture it.

“I need something intense for that first bass note there, just before it is soft but maybe pained...I was thinking of starting out on the floor,” she vocalizes, half to Tessa half speaking out loud her thoughts. 

Tessa thinks for a minute, picturing what she’s seen Emmy do before. “Could you kind of flip up from on the floor…”

Emmy thinks for a moment, goes roughly through some slow controlled movements sitting on the floor, before leaning back, her shoulders pressed to the floor with her back arched off the floor and her knees bent beneath her. It’s like there’s a string attached to her belly button pulling her up towards the ceiling. The invisible force pulls upwards once, twice before she rises up using her core to pull her forwards and rocking up on her legs until she’s standing on pointed toes. Then she stumbles forward with the momentum. 

“Wow,” is all Tessa can say as Emmy stops in front of her. 

“I think I can take the momentum of the stumble and turn it into a jump, or maybe a flip...an aerial maybe, I think I have enough residual momentum for that… without a sofa in the way? And it would hit that note there with a bam.” 

“I still can’t believe you can do that,” Tessa says, laughing. “You’re amazing.”

“Says the woman who backflips onto a man’s shoulders while moving across ice.” 

“I always have someone to catch me,” she smiles as Emmy comes to sit down next to her on the couch. 

“I’m not afraid of falling,” Emmy says, kissing Tessa’s shoulder and Tessa thinks for a moment that she isn’t either. 

**

Tessa is lying on her side, wearing nothing but an old Rolling Stones t-shirt of Emmy’s she’s adopted as her own whenever she stays over. The arms and neck are cut because Emmy said it made it easier to dance in. She likes it because the material is so worn in that it’s nearly sheer and so, so soft, and because she remembers Emmy wearing it one of the first choreography sessions she did with her and Scott. 

Emmy is lying next to her on her back, her eyes closed, arms folded across her chest. Her breathing is slow, relaxed but Tessa knows she isn’t sleeping, yet. She’s tracing the tip of her finger along the muscles of Emmy’s bare stomach, watching them contract under her light touch. Her stomach tightens, pulls involuntary away from Tessa’s fingers. Emmy suppresses a little giggle and then hums, turning her face towards Tessa to nuzzle into her shoulder but keeps her eyes closed. 

“Tickles,” she murmurs, but shifts in a little closer, smiling against Tessa’s upper arm.

Tessa’s fingers dance lower across soft skin until she follows the curve of Emmy’s hip bone. Then back up over the ridges of her ribs, and over and down again until she circles Emmy’s belly button. She runs her finger up and down the white scar that stretches out an inch above it. 

“That’s from when I was eight,” Emmy had told her one of their first times, when she asked about it. “About six months before my mom died,” she’d paused, a big deep breath in. “It had been a couple bad days in a row and she was in bed, I wanted to make a card to make her feel better but I wanted to use real cardboard so I took a cereal box and an exacto knife...but I pulled the knife in toward myself, instead of away and the box was tough to cut. It ended up being six stitches.” 

Tessa had kissed it then, and she does the same now. 

She’s never done this before, explored someone’s body with such care. Examining every curve, counting each freckle, memorizing every scar, tracing the ink marks of her tattoos. In the before, before when she just thought there was some deep flaw in her that made it impossible for her to connect like this, when she thought maybe Scott and skating were the reason she never had the desire—not with her boyfriends. Their bodies never interested her like this, her fingers didn’t itch to touch every inch of skin. In the in between, well there wasn’t a lot of in between, there was a long period of confusion and then realization and accepting, but then there were also Olympics, and training and a breakdown of trust in their coaches and Scott with his own emotions and upheavals. Then she had a year of yes immediately following their Sochi free dance and there was a bit of experimenting, exploring, solidifying what she’d come to know but nothing slow, nothing as deliberate, or as serious, or as rooted in emotions as this. Emmy is her first girlfriend. She can say that now with certainty. Because that’s what she is and she loves being able to say it, even if it has to stay private for now. 

There have been a lot of new things the past few months with Emmy. New feelings, new experiences, fully realizing new parts of herself. Things have built so naturally and Emmy has been so patient, so understanding with every part of it all. Sometimes she reflects on being twenty-eight years old and just coming into herself, who she is and was always meant to be. She feels like she still has training wheels somedays, and wonders if it bothers Emmy who has known and been proud of exactly who she is for a long time. 

“I’m sorry,” she says eventually, stopping her hand on the ridges of Emmy’s ribs, running her thumb over the quote there, just under her left breast. 

Emmy hums and opens one eye. “Why?” she asks with a sleepy smile. “I said it tickles, but I didn’t say I didn’t like it.” 

Tessa smiles a little, gently tickling under Emmy’s ribs, but then shakes her head. “For being so new at all this...” 

She sees Emmy bite her lip to suppress a laugh, knowing Tessa is being serious. “Are we talking about being new at sex? At relationships? At being gay?” 

“The last one, or two… or all of it in combination I guess… I mean sex… with woman… is newer…” 

Emmy rolls over then, so that they are both on their sides, nose to nose. She strokes Tessa’s cheek. “You’re ridiculous, you know that right?” 

Tessa shakes her head. 

“You are,” she smiles and rubs her nose on Tessa’s. “You don’t need to be sorry for that. For anything. I know you now, and I know you’re confident in who you are and what you want. Tessa Virtue does not go after what she doesn’t want. It doesn’t matter how long it took you to figure that out… I also have no complaints… about you know...” With that Emmy kisses her, long and deep and still a little sleepy.

“I’m so lucky to have you,” Tessa says. So lucky, she thinks, to have found this amazing woman who has been so perfect for her, so patient and so understanding, who smiles so easily, loves so openly. She feels a warmth spreading through her chest, a deep contentment seeping through her as Emmy pulls her in to cuddle. As she wraps her arms around Emmy’s waist, she thinks this is what falling in love feels like. 

**

They’re in Japan for Stars on Ice. It’s their first set of many, many shows for the rest of this year. They are only here for a week this time and three days in Tessa already misses Emmy. She spent a whole week with her before they left for Japan, came close to asking her to come with them. She came with them to LA for a few days before they filmed Ellen, but she has exams to take, classes to teach and choreography to create and can only justify so much time off during the school year. 

She and Scott are walking through the cherry blossoms, enjoying the view and the sweet aroma. She slips her arm through his and leans her head on his shoulder as their strides fall in sync. 

“Emmy would love this,” she says as they walk. 

Scott hums, turning his head to look around them. “It would be hard not to,” he says. “You missing her already?” 

Tessa nods. “A bit, how are things with Kacey?”

Scott shrugs. “Alright, I guess. Just trying really hard to take things slow for now.” 

“How very un-Scott of you,” she laughs, nudging his arm with her shoulder.

He laughs and pokes her in the side, shaking his head. “Thanks for that, Virtch.” 

They walk along in silence for a little while longer. Tessa pulls her leather jacket closed against the gentle early evening breeze, and Scott awkwardly tries to run his hands up her arms to warm her--a difficult task with how she’s cuddled into his arm. Scott hums a song she recognizes but can’t quite place, she can feel it reverberate through where her head is still leaned against his arm.

When she’s had enough of the humming, she starts to tell him about her week with Emmy, how light she feels when she spends time with her, stays in her apartment. How Emmy had come to London with her for a few days, too. Hung out with her and her mom and how happy that made her, how happy she is that they get along so well and that her mom has been so accepting. Her mom had initially been surprised when she came out to family, but had ultimately been great about it all, just wanting Tessa to be happy. Tessa wasn’t sure if that would change once she actually had a girlfriend: she’s so happy it didn’t. If anything her mom is even better than she had been, being able to see Tessa with a partner, being herself.

“I’m really happy for you, kiddo,” he says, steering them towards a bench. “Things are getting pretty serious, eh?” 

She nods, because it feels like that’s the way it’s headed. Has been since the start. She wants it to be serious. She isn’t sure if she’s ready to think of forever, but maybe… she thinks that might be what she wants eventually, once all the post Olympic craziness settles, once she’s had a chance for everything that’s happened this year to truly sink in. For now though, she’s content to enjoy whatever it is they’ve created for themselves. She never thought she’d be so happy to call someone her girlfriend.

“Are you sure you’re feeling okay about all these tours?” he asks, his tone more serious now. 

“Yeah, I think so,” her brow furrows in thought. He’s making her question herself now, but she knows she and Emmy have built a strong foundation over the last two and a half years. “We’ll get through it.”

“I have no doubt you will, you’re nothing if not determined, T,” he pauses for a second and smiles. “Besides it’s like fate or some shit. Meeting as kids at ballet camp at what nine or ten and finding each other after so many years. It’s meant to be, so you kind of have to make it, give the rest of us hope.”

Tessa rolls her eyes at him. “You’re annoying sometimes, you know that right?” 

He nods with a cocky grin. “I thought I was annoying all the time?” 

“I’m immune to about 90% of it,” she says and he barks out a laugh. “Besides I’m pretty sure fate was actually a set up by Marie.” 

“Even better, you ought to send her a thank you card. Thanks for the great sex,” he laughs and waves his hands in the air, gesturing a large sign. 

“You’re the worst,” she says, shaking her head. “Also, that would imply that I had sex with Marie…” 

“Uh oh, Patch might get jealous.” 

“I hate you,” she huffs, leaning back against his arm. “Emmy is way funnier than you, did you know?” 

“Nah,” he says. “I’m hilarious,” he pauses for a while, wrapping an arm around her shoulder. “Seriously though kid, you sure being away for so long will be okay? I know you, and I know this is your first serious relationship and I know how much you like her, love her, maybe,” he nudges her softly and she blushes. She thinks she feels it but it’s too early. “I just, I want to make sure you realize it’ll be different now, it’ll be hard. You like to be all in Tess, it’s hard to be all in when you’re across the globe.”

“Thank you,” she says, so warmed by his concern, she understands where he’s coming from, but he’s always been fine on long periods of touring with significant others. She can handle it, her and Emmy can. “I know it won’t be easy, but it’ll be okay, I can feel it.” 

**

Scott’s been on his phone all morning as they stroke around the rink in Victoria to warm up, constantly texting and checking for messages and whatever else he’s been doing. It’s driving her nuts. Particularly since she hasn’t heard from Emmy since early last night. Usually, Emmy texts her good morning when she gets up to go teach, or sends her a grumpy face selfie complaining about how much she hates getting up, or hates Montreal traffic or that her coffee is better when Tessa gets it for her. Today has been radio silent and she’s mad at Scott who has clearly spent his morning text flirting his latest girlfriend. She hates it. 

“I thought things were rocky with Kacey,” she snaps when he picks his phone up a sixth time in so many minutes, taking a break from stroking around the rink. “You make up?” 

He shrugs, “Sort of, I guess.”

“Are you texting someone else?” she asks, trying to peak over at his phone. He immediately pulls it away and shoves it in his pocket. 

“What the hell, Virtch!” he says as he skates away. “Don’t snoop.” 

“You’re being weird, I just want to know why.” 

“Just leave it be, okay?” 

“Fine,” she huffs, skating off after him, sliding her hand into his. 

They skate around a few more minutes before his phone starts buzzing in his pocket, she frowns and skates off while he answers it. Speaking in a hushed voice. 

When he skates back up to her he looks guilty. He can’t quite make eye contact and he tucks his bottom lip under his teeth. “I’m really sorry, kiddo, but I gotta cut out early. I’ll meet you at the hotel later?”

She skates off without a word toward where Kaetlyn is practicing, planning on watching her for a bit before giving up for the morning. He’s bailing on her for a girl when they have a show tonight. Honestly, fuck him and his girlfriend and the fact that she hasn’t heard from hers in eighteen hours. 

**

Tessa gets back to the hotel an hour later, tired and a more than a little bit cranky and still a lot mad at Scott for bailing on her. She has at least finally heard from Emmy, a heart emoji and a simple _sorry babe today has been unexpectedly busy, talk later?_ It’s better than nothing, so she plans on trying to call at some point before the show tonight. 

She opens her hotel room door, ready to drop her bags and hop in a hot shower, hoping to wash away her bad mood, barely paying attention when she pushes open the door and kicks off her runners, not noticing the extra pair of shoes or bag lined neatly in front of the closet. 

“Hi,” a soft, familiar voice wraps around her like a warm embrace. 

She looks up and there’s Emmy, standing in the middle of her hotel room looking a bit nervous, playing with the ends of her hair that’s hanging over her shoulder in a side braid. Her cheeks are red and she’s biting her bottom lip while she shrugs, looking at Tessa’s feet rather than her face. But then Tessa sees Emmy’s face split into a grin when Tessa drops her bag and rushes over to pull Emmy into her arms.

“You’re here?” she says, holding her tight, she can hear the wonder in her own voice. She isn’t sure this is real, that her tired brain hasn’t cooked up this fantasy. “You flew across the country for me?” 

“Happy early birthday,” Emmy says, pulling Tessa in as close as she can.

The realization clicks and and Tessa pulls away, holding Emmy’s shoulders, not ready to give up physical contact. “Scott helped you, didn’t he?” 

Emmy nods. “Yeah, we’ve been planning this for the last month. I mentioned it casually and he was so gung ho about it, thought that it was a great plan.” 

“That fucker,” she says with a laugh. “He’s been lying to me, but I’m so glad you’re here.” 

“I didn’t want to miss your birthday,” Emmy smiles before leaning in to kiss her. Lips pressing softly at first, before Tessa deepens it, pulling her in and pouring just how happy she is, how much she missed her into the touch of their lips. It’s a little frantic, a little messy and a lot wonderful. 

Just like that her mood has flipped and she couldn’t be happier, or more grateful for the wonderful people she holds so dear. In a few days she’ll be leaving with Scott to start their Asian tours, six weeks away and she’s so very glad she gets to have a few days with her girlfriend first. 

She’s so happy, that later the next afternoon, when they have a day off, she posts a selfie with Emmy. captions it _One of my favourite people in the whole world decided to surprise me! My heart is so full._ She doesn’t even care, at the moment, how it may or may not look because she’s bursting at the seams with contentment. 

**

“How do you do it?” she asks Scott over breakfast a week and a half in to their Asian tours. 

“How do I do what?” he mumbles over a bite of egg on toast, egg white dripping from his mouth and sticking to his chin. 

“Be so disgusting,” she says, shaking her head and passing him a handful of napkins, resisting the urge to either look away, nose crinkled in disgust, or wipe it off for him. 

“You’re the one who interrupted me mid bite,” he tries to defend himself, taking another bite of his breakfast. “How do I do what kiddo?” 

“This,” she says with a shrug, toying with the handle of her coffee mug. “Touring, while in a relationship… how do you do it? How the hell did you ever compete while dating?” 

“You’re missing her?” he asks, sympathy and understanding laced through his words.

Tessa nods and frowns a bit, it’s barely been over a week since Vancouver and she’s already struggling. She thinks there’s more to it, beyond just Emmy, but she’s afraid to let herself think too hard on it. She’s been keeping herself busy, over scheduling herself, or pouring her everything into being with Em when she’s with her because she worries that if she gives herself enough room to breathe then everything will come crashing in on her. 

Training for the Olympics was formulaic. They had a team; a series of coaches, physios, nutritionists, doctors and psychologists prescribed their every move. Though she couldn’t predict the outcome of any given competition, there are always factors beyond your control, she knew what each and every day of the comeback would look like and refused to let herself look beyond the Olympics. Now, she has no idea what her future looks like, what or who it will include and it’s overwhelming. It also terrifies her not knowing what to do in a relationship, feeling out of her depth. She’s never been here before and it’s scary as hell because she doesn’t want to fuck it up. Wants it maybe more than she wanted the Olympics. 

“I’m only going to admit this once,” she says, resting her chin on her hand and sighing. “You were right. I’m finding this a lot harder than I thought it would be, not seeing her. How do you do it? How are you making it work with Kacey?”

He shrugs his shoulders as if to say I don’t know, but she can see the crease forming between his eyebrows and the slight down turn of his lips and she knows he’s trying to come up with an answer for her. Something he thinks may be remotely helpful. He’s quiet for a moment and she just sits there and watches as he thinks. He’s become a lot more contemplative the last few years, and she appreciates it. 

He’s become a grounding force for her, and as much as she was his rock when things were tough for him personally during their comeback seasons, he’s been there for her after the Olympics, helping her stay afloat and assuring her she is a good girlfriend. She feels a bit bad about it but she’s attached herself to him more this touring season than she ever has in the past. They’ve spent more time together as friends than she thinks they ever have before. 

“It can be hard for sure,” he starts once he’s finally found his words. “But I’m also kind of used to it in a way you aren’t. I was nineteen the first time I tried to juggle a serious girlfriend with skating and I don’t know I guess it became the norm for me to be skating Scott when we were training and boyfriend Scott when we had time off.”

She gets that. She’s seen it in practice. When they are on the ice or in their training bubble Scott is and has always been one hundred percent committed to her, and then when they aren’t he’s committed to his girlfriend, goes all in—often rushing relationships to play catch up. She wonders if it’s almost like dating two people and tries not to dwell on that. If she didn’t have Scott with her on tour, being her emotional support, the distance from Emmy would be unbearable. 

Even though she gets it, he keeps trying to explain. “I know it’s probably not the healthiest,” he shrugs. “And eventually won’t be great long term but… I don’t know, I have skating and when I’m here, I’m here and yeah it can be harder when we aren’t actually on the ice, but then we go home and have some time off and I guess I go in to full boyfriend mode. Though I’m trying to be better at not rushing things this time, we’ll see how that goes.” 

“She’s good for you,” is what Tessa says, because it’s true and because she doesn’t think she can do that, be like him and separate her life like that, not now so she doesn’t want to comment on it. She’s not sure he wants to keep it up either. 

Scott’s been seeing his current girlfriend, Kacey, since nearly a year before the Olympics. And Tessa really does like her, truly believes she’s a good fit for him. She’s fun and down to earth, friendly and outgoing, sporty and likes country. Tessa first met her a year ago, though she and Scott met years and years ago at a house party in Michigan. Kacey was going to school on a rowing scholarship. She and Scott hooked up a few times—that much she knows—which made for a funny realization when they met again last year at a B2ten function, as Kacey worked briefly with the organization as a physiotherapist. 

Kacey actually lives near London now, working as a physio for the women’s national rowing team and Tessa isn’t sure how exclusive or serious they were prior to the games; she didn’t really need or want details, so didn’t ask. She knows they’d visit and go on occasional dates and we’re likely sleeping together on these occasions. She knows already that he intended to take things slow after the Olympics as well, learn from previous mistakes but she isn’t sure how that’s actually going for him. She knows him, knows that family life has always been important to him, that he envies his brothers with their traditional family lives. Even if he won’t quite admit it, he’s itching to settle down and she isn’t sure Kacey is there just yet, she’s a year younger than Tessa and though she doesn’t seem opposed to that life, from what Tessa can tell, she isn’t looking at kids and marriage as a now thing. Regardless Scott seems to take the separation during touring with stride. 

“She’s pretty great,” he smiles and reaches out for her hand, squeezing it. “Emmy is too, Tess and you’ll figure it out. I understand that how I deal with it isn’t going to be the same way you do,” he shrugs. “We don’t deal with things the same way, enough therapy has taught me that and I’m glad we don’t. Also, god Tess, it’s different for you because she’s your first honest to god relationship with someone you actually have feelings for and you waited a long time for that… it’s going to suck not being with her… and… I get that and maybe we should get through our tours this year and then reevaluate what we both want.”

She nods, they haven’t said they’re going to retire in so many words, but they both know they’re done. Done competing for sure and after all this touring this year, she knows they aren’t going to want to do this again, not to this extent, it’s too much. 

“Oh,” Scott says, changing the subject, pulling out his phone. “Look at this photo Kacey sent me, she’s been volunteering coaching one of the high school teams… they flipped their boat. This is the second time...”

He turns his phone to show her a picture of four teenage girls, dripping wet, exaggerated frowns standing in front of a dock on the Thames. Tessa laughs at the accompanying text: _Am I a bad coach? Nearly two months on the water and still they flipped trying turn around, I can’t even figure out how they managed it._

Tessa takes out her own phone and opens her text thread with Emmy. 

“Em had that Spotify thing I was telling you about today,” she says, breaking into a smile. “It went well, but she’s paying for agreeing to do ballet.”

Her screen is currently filled with a string of: _duck my feet hurt, duck, ducking hell, duck, I mean duck, duck this, goose I guess_ all sent as individual messages. Emmy still hasn’t figured out how to fix her autocorrect of fuck to duck and it makes Tessa laugh everytime.

Scott laughs. “So, either her phone is trying to tell Emmy to watch her language or she’s telling you she wants a pet duck. You could name it Goose,” he laughs at himself. “Honestly, how can someone who seems so sweet and little swear so much?” 

Tessa laughs. “I know! iPhone is just trying to help curb her profanity. It’s cute how much she loves ducks.”

Scott scrolls to the next message which is a picture of Emmy’s feet in pointe shoes with the accompanying message of _I haven’t worn these in so long and it hurts so bad, send help._

Emmy spent yesterday, or earlier today for her Tessa realizes, dancing in a commercial for Spotify Canada—a huge deal. Part of what had Tessa upset this morning, though entirely unreasonably, was that she woke this morning to notifications of Emmy posting on her little used Instagram the same pointe shoe picture and some others of the set. And though Tessa is so damn happy for her, they’d all been posted while Tessa was sleeping and it hurt a bit to think that strangers on the internet had seen and heard about Emmy’s big day before Tessa had. 

Which is just another thing Tessa can feel guilt about. A side effect of being Tessa and Scott’s choreographer was a large uptick in followers post Olympics, but along with that came messages asking her about Tessa and Scott’s personal relationships. Then being with Tessa came the new found need for her to be careful with her posting habits, not to reveal too much. Emmy hardly posts outside of dance related things now and cleary today’s posts fit in to her working life and she should be able to share it, but Tessa is sad that she wasn’t the first to see and hear about how it went.

Before she can turn her phone away from Scott it pings in her hand. Scott’s eyebrows shoot up to his hairline and he immediately averts his gaze. 

“Shit. Tess. Uh—T… you… yeah... I should not have seen that,”

Tessa flips her phone around so fast she nearly drops it, fumbling it in her hands as she quickly tries and fails to exit out of her messaging app. 

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck,” she mutters, stuffing her phone back in her pocket, feeling heat rushing from her chest to her face, to the tips of her ears. She doesn’t blush super easily but she knows right now she is beet red. “Fuck. I’m sorry.” 

Scott is shaking his head, eyes still wide in shock. “I’m sorry,” he says over top of her. “I’m, yeah so… I definitely should not have seen that.” 

Tessa is torn between running away from the table and laughing to cover her embarrassment both for herself and Emmy, who had just sent her a selfie in the bath, her face and chest in view of the camera, the bubbles barely covering her nipples with the message _relaxing my sore muscles and I wish you were here_. And Scott saw it as it came in. Fuck. Tessa had assumed Emmy was sleeping. Fuck. 

“Clearly it wasn’t my intent to show you that.” God she hates this. 

He shakes his head, looking equally as embarrassed, his neck and the tips of his ears deep red. “Clearly the two of you will make this work just fine,” he says, still shaking his head. 

Tessa buries her face in her hands and groans. 

“So, how about the weather?” he tries, nudging her out of her hiding place.

She laughs at that, a big laugh that shakes her whole body, because it’s him and this is so ridiculous. She feels so much lighter than she did at the beginning of this conversation despite her embarrassment and the fact that she knows she’ll have to tell Emmy that Scott has now seen her boobs and she’s so very sorry. Though, she’s sure Emmy will just laugh it off, Tessa is slightly envious of her ability to just take everything in stride. 

**

“Fuck.” There’s shuffling on the other end of the line before Emmy’s face comes into view. Her eyes look red, swollen, and her face is drained, but she smiles up at Tessa, her big bright grin made of sunshine. “Sorry, I dropped the phone,” her voice sounds wrecked, cracked and fraying at the edges. 

“What’s wrong?” Tessa asks immediately, sitting up straighter in her hotel bed. 

Emmy shakes her head. “I’m fine. Tired.” 

“Em?” This isn’t what Tessa is used to. Short, answers, that give nothing, yet are thick with emotion, so heavy that she seems to struggle to push them out. Emmy, normally bright and cheery and very present, usually doesn’t hesitate to say exactly how she’s feeling. “Are you okay?”

“It’s been a rough day,” she says, after a beat or two, wiping at her eyes with her sweater sleeve. “It hasn’t been a good day, and I’m tired. I’m sorry.”

It hurts to see Emmy hurting, not knowing why and being so far away. She doesn’t know what she’s meant to do, because she can’t do the only thing she wants, which is to wrap her up in her arms and hold her close. “Don’t be. Don’t be sorry,” she sighs, she wants to cry a bit too because this is hard, not being there. “Can you tell me about it?” 

Emmy shifts in her bed, propping herself up a bit on the pillows. “Today’s my mom’s birthday,” she says on an inhale, then she exhales heavily and closes her eyes. “Most years I’m okay. Today’s just been really hard,” she shrugs her shoulders, as if she’s trying to gesture that it’s not a big deal, even as tears start to gather in her eyes and spill down her cheeks.

Tessa can feel her heart break, like it’s been pulled from her chest and torn in two, half of it still in Montreal. “Why didn’t you tell me?” 

“There’s nothing you could’ve done,” Emmy says with another shrug. “I didn’t want you worrying all the way over there. It’s okay.” 

Tessa is shaking her head, watching this incredible, vibrant women fall apart through the tiny screen of her iPhone. It hurts even more because she knows Emmy’s right, she can’t do anything about it. Not now. “I could have called you earlier… Talked to you… I don’t know. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I can’t be there.” 

“Me too,” Emmy says, tears falling in earnest now. “I’m sorry you can’t be here too.”

“Fuck,” Tessa curses, because she doesn’t know what else to say. “This is so hard. I’m sorry.”

“I know,” Emmy says, solemnly. “I needed you today and you’re so far away,” she sucks in a sharp breath, her eyes going wide. “Fuck. Sorry. Sorry, I’m really not having a good day. I didn’t mean that to sound how it did… I understand why you can’t be here, I do. It’s just that I'm having a harder time than I thought I would. I miss you.”

Tessa’s heart sinks. She didn’t think this would be so hard either. She didn’t know what to expect. She isn’t used to this. To feeling so much for someone else or having someone else rely on her for comfort and solace both emotionally and physically. She’s had Scott for most of her life, her forever constant, her emotional anchor, the closest person she’s ever had outside family but he’s almost always nearby and this is so different. In such a short time Emmy has managed to weave herself into all the fibres of Tessa’s life. She’s the first person she wants to talk to, to tell about her day. It’s Emmy’s arms she wants curl up into when she’s had a bad day, her voice she wants to hear when she wakes up. She misses her smile that warms her like the sun, her constant optimism, the magical way she can look at Tessa and know how she’s feeling and can set her at ease. She misses kissing her, touching her, she misses sex, which she’s never missed in a relationship before. These feelings are all so new to her. 

She thought she’d be able to handle the distance. That texts and phone calls and FaceTime would be enough until her schedule settles again. Scott makes it work, even though he warned her it might be tougher for her, because of her nature. She feels terrible, like she’s completely letting down one of the most important people in her life. She was silly in not thinking that Emmy would miss her in the same ways, or more—since Tessa has spent so much of her life travelling she’s grown accustomed to some of the sacrifices. But Emmy’s had partners before, one who Tessa knows she basically lived with. She’s used to having a certain level of physical presence in a partner that Tessa hasn’t been able to offer lately. It makes her feel like shit. She’s a terrible girlfriend. 

“I miss you too,” she says, sighing. “So much. I’m sorry. I really didn’t think this would be so hard, I thought it would be like before the Olympics...that I don’t know,” she shrugs not really sure how to finish. 

Emmy pauses for a minute, biting at her lip before saying anything. “You know, waiting for the Olympics was pretty hard for me. I didn’t have winning to focus on...I just had the hope that when you kissed me, it meant what I thought it did.” 

She’s always admired Emmy for her patience with her, with their relationship and really just so many things in life in general, but she hadn’t fully realized how hard waiting might have been for her. She feels selfish now. 

“I’m sorry I made you wait,” she says, dropping down on her pillows. Her body starting to feel heavy from the weight of the conversation. 

“You didn’t make me wait, I wanted to...I wanted to be with you. I didn’t want anyone else. I don’t want anyone else. You’re worth it to me,” she takes in a long breath, a count of five before exhaling and starting again. “My last girlfriend was before I moved to Montreal to start my second MA,” Tessa is still so proud of her for that, for having two Masters by her mid twenties, she just finished her second. The first she started straight after undergrad in choreography, but she wanted to combine that with injury prevention so went on to do one in exercise physiology while doing choreography and teaching classes, it’s impressive. “But she was in school in Toronto and I got accepted here. We broke up because I didn’t want to do long distance, I didn’t think it would work.” 

“Oh,” Tessa’s mouth forms the word but the sound doesn’t come out. She never heard this part of the story. She can feel how her heart has picked up in her chest, falling out of sync with her breathing, her lungs feeling like they aren’t filling. “Is this not working? Do...do you want to…is this it?” her breath catches. “It’s probably best, yeah? Since I’m not there...fuck. I’m so sorry…” she can’t bring herself to say the words, as if speaking them out loud would will the worst into existence.

But Emmy is shaking her head so hard her hair falls out of its bun. “No. Tessa. Dammit, that isn’t what I meant by that story. Fuck,” she swallows, takes a shaky breath. “That relationship wasn’t worth it, wasn’t worth the risk… wasn’t worth how hard I knew it’d be… fuck now I sound awful. I just, I knew it wouldn’t work with her. I’d rather have been single and focused on myself and my new life in a new city on my job and my degree. And I was and I did, until you. Then god...what I meant was I knew that you’d be touring, that you’d be doing all these amazing things, just like before I knew you had the Olympics and I knew it would be hard… but I waited for you and I said yes anyways. Because for me, you’re worth it. It’s just hard...and some days...bad days like today,” she’s crying again, wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand. “Some days I wonder if I’m as worth it for you...to want to make this all work, to figure it out.” 

Tessa’s crying now too, she shakes the tears loose as she nods her head. “Yes. Of course you are. God, Em I’ve never felt like this about anyone before. I miss you so much, okay? So much. I just want to be with you. I didn’t think this would be so hard either. I love you,” the words spill out at the end. She’s felt them, she’s meant them for a while, but this absolutely isn’t how she wanted to say them. “Shit. I didn’t mean to say that.” 

Emmy’s face falls almost imperceptibly but she notices and it’s like a pit drops in her stomach all over again. She doesn’t want to have fucked this up even more. “You didn’t?” 

“I love you, I meant that,” she rushes. “I love you so much. I’ve known that for a while,” Tessa takes a deep breath. “I just didn’t mean to say it like that. I wanted to wait until I was home, and everything was perfect and I could be with you and kiss you and say it.” 

“I wish I could kiss you too, but I’m glad you said it anyways because I love you too. I needed to hear that today and to say it I think. I love you,” she sighs. “We can make this work, right? God, I love you. I love you, Tess. I want this.” It makes Tessa smile a bit, that after Emmy said it, it’s like she can’t stop because she feels it too. Like she never wants to stop saying I love you, now that she has.

“I want this too, I want this more than anything. I can just come home next week. Cut out the last leg out. I miss you.” 

“You can’t do that,” Emmy smiles, it looks a bit regretful. “You have fans counting on you, you have Scott counting on you. You can’t just stop and come home.” 

“I would though, if you wanted me to.” 

“I know. How about instead we just make sure we check in everyday? Okay… and oh phone sex, we could try phone sex! I’ve never done that before,” her voice rises at the end and Tessa notices her cheeks pinking and eyes widening in surprise at her own words and maybe at the level of excitement with which she said them. Tessa loves it, it’s kind of adorable.

Tessa barks out a laugh, she’s still teary, so is Emmy, but things feel much lighter. 

“I’d like that.”

**

It’s nine in the morning when she calls Emmy, seven the evening before for her back home in Canada. Tessa has the day off and has been lounging around sipping her coffee for the last hour—taking Emmy’s advice to just relax when she gets the chance to, she knows she’s been overworking herself and it’s causing more than a little stress on top of being away from home. It’s been hard to admit, but she isn’t having as easy a transition as she thought she would, post Olympics. These tours are really draining her and she’s been feeling lost without competition (or Emmy nearby) to give her purpose, to ground her.

There’s some shuffling, and laughter and murmured voices before Emmy’s face comes into view. She’s beaming as soon as she sees Tessa. 

“Hey babe!” Emmy says, Tessa can hear the excitement in her voice. She hears more chatter and some music in the background and her eyes widen. “Don’t worry, it’s just Jer and James,” there’s a voice yelling from a bit farther way. “Oh and Stephie.” 

Emmy pans her phone around the room where her two best friends from ballet school, Jerome and Stephanie are sitting one on the hotel bed, the other the small couch, then to the chair in the corner where Jerome’s boyfriend James is sitting, scrolling through his phone—probably searching for the next song to play. 

Jerome and Emmy used to partner frequently when they did ballet together. Tessa can see why, they make a beautiful pair—aesthetically speaking—perfectly contrasting. Emmy’s fair complexion and red hair next to Jerome’s darker colouring are striking. She’s seen them dance together too, they are stunning, how they move together so fluidly. But Emmy says it’s awkward sometimes, she isn’t used to dancing with a partners as much anymore—mainly teaching and dancing as a soloist. 

“He’s the first and only boy I’ve kissed,” Emmy said through a laugh, the first time Tessa met him. 

“We played Romeo and Juliet back in our final year at the NBS, so we had a few stage kisses. Practiced for real once and Em called me gross, real highlight of our friendship,” Jerome had provided, noticing the wide eyed expression on Tessa’s face. 

Jerome’s a principle now for the National Ballet and his boyfriend James is a high school teacher. Steph, was Emmy’s roommate through her final years at school. Tessa knows they dated very briefly when Emmy first started university, right after she’d come out. Emmy’s been very open about that. But it was more discovering themselves within the comfort of a relationship with someone close, someone who felt safe. Steph is an editor for an arts magazine and married now and she and her husband have two adorable little boys, Finn and Henry. Tessa is happy for Emmy that they were able to remain friends after that. 

Emmy’s friends all wave to Tessa through the phone screen, smiling brightly, a small unharmonized chorus of _Hi Tess_. They are among the very small, close group of people who know about Tessa and Emmy’s relationship and Tessa has met them all once or twice when her and Emmy have been in Toronto--where they still live-- at the same time. She really likes them and she can see why Emmy chose them as her friends. 

Emmy’s friends are inviting and accepting and just as vibrant as Emmy is. But her favourite thing about them has been seeing Emmy surrounded by people who love her fiercely. Emmy only has her grandparents for family, but her friends, Tessa can tell, are there for her in the way that family would be—Emmy and Jerome often bicker like siblings. And Emmy feeds off the energy of people just as bright and fiery as she is, who she’s known since she was a kid. Jer and Steph are Emmy’s Scott and Tessa is so glad she has them to share with.

“How’s getting ready for the gala going?” Tessa asks. “You should be heading out soon shouldn’t you?” 

Emmy laughs and winks at her through the phone. “Nineteen years later and you’re still trying to make sure I get places on time.” The call back to when they first met and Tessa would be grabbing Emmy’s hand to drag her to dance class on time, or helping fix her wild hair into a bun so they weren’t late, makes her smile. “We’re just waiting for our Uber from the hotel, it’s already called.”

Tessa hears a mumbled, “Still don’t know why you needed a hotel when we have a spare room,” from who she believes to be James. 

Emmy rolls her eyes and the hotel thing may be Tessa’s fault. Emmy is in Toronto for the next few days for a fundraising gala with the National Ballet in partnership with Toronto Dance Theatre and the Arts Council of Ontario, who Emmy has been working alongside for her injury prevention workshops. They’ve designed both teacher training—how to gauge students physical readiness for higher skills such as pointe and exercises for injury prevention—and student workshops. Part of the fundraising tonight is looking for funding to bring the training to dance schools across the country. Tessa knew Emmy was nervous about it, all the work she does outside choreography is poured into the initiative. It’s been her passion project since she had to stop ballet due to a ruptured achilles at only seventeen—a stress related injury like Tessa’s own. Emmy dislikes public events like this and Tessa knew she will want to unwind after so Tessa’s booked her a hotel room, that way she’d have a reason to politely decline her friends offers to stay with them without it being on her.

Tessa can hear Steph say something about Emmy needing private time to talk to her girlfriend and sees Emmy blush. She tries to change the topic before it charters into uncomfortable territory. Emmy’s been holding the phone relatively close, so Tessa can see the care she’s put into her makeup--far more dramatic than she’s used to seeing on her and admittedly really damn hot--and she can tell that her wild auburn curls are more of a loose wave today, pinned up on one side, her hair looks lighter, more red when it isn’t so tightly curled, but she can’t see what she’s picked to wear, not with the frame so close to her face.

“Show me your dress?” she asks excitedly. Emmy had called her when she found it but refused to show it to her said she had to wait to see the whole look. 

Emmy smiles and waggles her eyebrows. “I was waiting for you to ask.” 

Emmy slowly moves the phone away from her, showing more and more of herself and Tessa can’t help her muttered fuck, because goddammit she really wishes she could be in Toronto right now and not Japan. Emmy’s wearing a simple black satin dress, but the top drapes over each shoulder and across Emmy’s chest, just barely covering her breasts. Tessa can see the last few letters of Emmy’s tattoo on her ribs on the left side where the neckline plunges past her sternum. 

“Wow,” is all she manages. She wants to reach through the screen and trace the V of the dress, trailing her fingers over Emmy’s chest. Normally she isn’t like this, normally something as simple as a revealing neckline wouldn’t have her wanting quite so much, maybe it’s because it’s been weeks since she’s touched Emmy, since she’s been touched and god she wants. She really wants her girlfriend. 

Emmy smiles even brighter, clearly very proud of the reaction she’s gotten and Tessa wants to kiss the smile right off her face, because she feels like she’s being teased and it isn’t nice. “I thought you’d like it,” Emmy says. 

“I really do,” Tessa tries hard to regulate her voice and what she says, conscious of the other people in the room with Emmy. 

“Wait,” Emmy says and then someone else is holding the phone and Emmy is twirling to show her the back of the dress, or the lack of. Tessa has an unobstructed view of Emmy’s beautiful, colourful Terpsichore tattoo between her shoulders. The straps of the dress going straight down to the skirt, leaving almost the entirety of her back bare. Tessa knows she herself has worn plenty of dresses and costumes that leave little to the imagination, more revealing than what Emmy has on now. She’s worked hard on her body and likes showing it off when she gets a chance, loves fashion, loves things like this, but she isn’t used to Emmy in a dress like this and she has to admit she loves it a bit. A lot. It’s doing something to her.

God, she really misses her girlfriend. 

“You’ll have to send me a picture later,” she says, relatively quietly, once it’s clear Emmy has taken her phone back, hoping no one else in the room hears. 

Then, Emmy is excusing herself and walking out of the room, closing the bathroom door softly behind her, giving them just a bit of privacy. “Sorry everyone is here,” she says quietly. “They were helping me get ready,” she shakes her head. “Well mostly Steph was helping with my makeup and hair, I’m not really sure about the boys.” 

“It’s okay, Em,” she says, shifting on her own hotel room couch, tucking her legs under her. “I’m glad you have your friends. I really wish I could be there with you, I’m sorry I can’t.” Tessa isn’t even sure if it would be appropriate for her to go even if she were home, given the private nature of their relationship, but she still would have found a way—she’s sure she could charm people into believing she was there just to talk about how well Emmy worked with her and Scott, keeping her injury in mind. 

“I know,” Emmy says, her voice soft. “I wish I could have been with you for Vogue the other day… arguably a much bigger deal than a fundraiser. Scott doesn’t even like fashion and got to go,” she fakes a pout, jutting her bottom lip out.

Tessa laughs and shakes her head. “I wish you could have come too, Scott does not appreciate the fashion. I do though and I really appreciate that dress and what it’s doing for you. Wow,” she takes a deep breath and bites at her lip, hesitating for just a moment before dropping the tone of her voice just a bit, enough she hopes her intentions are clear. “And I really wouldn’t mind a picture later...please.”

“Yeah. Yeah. I will make sure you get one babe. Um, I could call you later too?” Emmy says with a sharp inhale. “When I get back later tonight… I can call?” 

Tessa’s nodding before she can fully process anything. “Yes. Yeah. Please… that would be nice. That would be really nice.” 

**

It’s nearly two in the afternoon in Japan, Tessa has spent her morning and afternoon on the couch reading, ordering in coffee and room service for lunch. She’s almost finished the novel she started, _Little Fires Everywhere_. She’s been enjoying trying to be lazier when she has the rare off day, which has been a struggle but she’s working on it.

She’s been waiting for Emmy to call her back when the gala is over, getting periodic texts throughout Emmy’s night, including a picture of the full dress when she’d snuck away to the bathroom. Tessa had contemplated sending back a selfie of her own but hadn’t wanted to distract her so sent back three fire emojis and a kissy face. _Can’t wait to call you later, babe_ , Emmy had replied. 

She isn’t quite sure what to expect when Emmy calls, she thinks they are heading towards phone sex, which they’ve talked about but haven’t actually managed to get a chance to do yet. Not with the time difference and their varying schedules. But she isn’t sure, she doesn’t want to presume and would be perfectly content if Emmy just wants to talk about the gala. She thinks maybe she’s reading signs that aren’t there because she’s so goddamn geared up in a way she’s never been before. She’s never wanted sex this badly before. Never felt it’s absence quite so acutely as she has the past few weeks. 

The first time Tessa had sex she was seventeen. Her boyfriend was older and it’s what she thought she was meant to do, what she should want. She knew it was what he wanted and expected. She had believed that maybe if she did it, she’d understand, that something would click inside her, and she’d want it. It didn’t happen for her. The first time had been a bit painful and unsatisfying and for the most part that’s how it continued. But afterwards he’d told her she was beautiful and amazing and that she’d felt so good and that she was sexy. And that made her feel good. She liked that feeling, that she’d made someone else feel good, that she was good and beautiful and desired. But she didn’t enjoy sex itself, not with any of her boyfriends and never craved it with anyone. Even with the few women before Em, the few encounters that taught her that she could like sex that it could feel good and be satisfying, she still didn’t crave it after, not the same at least, not like now. 

It isn’t that she didn’t think about sex, she did. Even as a teenager she touched herself, she fantasized about sex. Though she didn’t make the connection until later, that when she’d close her eyes and imagine, when she’d think about sex her brain was always focused on the woman. It was never her, but she’d find herself getting off thinking of what her faceless fantasy male would do, where and how he would touch her fantasy woman. Later she’d come to know it was how she wanted to touch someone. She’d been taught to think of sex as something between a man and woman, so that’s how she imagined it, but she never cared about the man in her fantasies, never thought about his body. And she never imagined someone specific, not until Emmy. 

Sex with Emmy though is fantastic, the best. And she misses it and wants her so much, all the time. She thinks that a lot of that is wrapped up in emotion, in deep attraction, on being with someone she loves. Being with someone who loves her back, who wants to make her feel good, feel cherished and who she wants to feel the same. The first time she made Emmy come, she’d still been nervous, hesitant over her relative lack of experience. Emmy had reassured her that it didn’t matter, told her to do what she felt comfortable with, that they had time. Told her to try what she liked and she’d guide her otherwise. 

“I just want you to feel good,” she’d said, like Emmy had made her feel, her innate ability to read Tessa and tell exactly what she needs extending to this too. She always knows when she needs more or less of something at the exact right moment. 

Emmy laughed and kissed her. “I’m going to sound hallmark levels of sappy right now,” she’d paused, flashing her bright smile, the one that’s always been Tessa’s favourite, that never fails to warm her and put her at ease. “But just being with you is good for me.” 

But Tessa doesn’t forget the heady feeling of watching Emmy come apart, knowing it was her that caused it. It very quickly became her favourite part of sex with Emmy. How she always lets out a litany of curses when she’s getting close, increasing in pitch and volume the closer she is until she falls silent, a deep flush of colour rising in her chest and cheeks. 

Tessa has long given up on her book and has her eyes closed thinking about her amazing girlfriend in her likewise amazing dress and how much she wants to be with her, when Emmy finally does call her back. It’s just after midnight Ontario time when she does and Tessa assumes she’s just gotten back to her hotel room. 

“Hi,” Emmy says, her face coming into focus on the screen as soon as Tessa answers. She’s moving around a bit, leaning one hand against the wall as she kicks off her heels. Clearly having called as soon as she got back into her room. It makes Tessa smile, fills her with warmth at the fact that Emmy seems just as eager to call her as she is to hear from her. 

“Hey you,” she says back, shifting a bit on the couch and adjusting her hold on her phone so Emmy can see her better. “How was it?” 

“It was actually really, really good,” Emmy says, walking further into her hotel room, flopping onto the bed. “But I’m so glad it’s over.” 

Tessa laughs. “That’s how it always is.”

Emmy hums, lying back on her bed, holding the phone out above her so that Tessa is looking down at her. “I got to talk about you a few times, so that was nice.” 

Tessa raises her eyebrows, “Oh yeah?” 

“Mhm,” Emmy hums. “Most of it was relevant to training with injury prevention or maintenance in mind...working with you guys for the Olympics on your choreography. Some was just asking how amazing you are in real life, and I tried to keep my gushing to a minimum,” she smiles, shrugs as if to say she may not have done the best job at that and laughs lightly. “I only got asked once if I know if you’re fucking Scott.” 

Tessa groans. “Sorry,” she says, shaking her head. She hates that anyone close to her ever has to field that question, but especially Emmy who she knows would prefer to answer that by telling them exactly who she is fucking. 

Emmy shrugs. “I said I knew for absolute certain that you were not, left it at that. He was pretty gross anyways. Tried three times to get my number, apparently this dress does not give out enough gay vibes...he even said as much when I told him I have a girlfriend.” 

Tessa frowns, understanding the exact kind of guy Emmy is talking about, wishing even more she could have been with her, though it would have taken a lot not to wrap her arm around her protectively and tell the guy to fuck right off. “Well he is totally wrong though, that dress has been giving me very gay thoughts all day. I am a big fan.” 

Emmy laughs, it’s big and bright and her image shakes, her whole body moving with the laugh, and Tessa can almost feel it through the phone, can almost imagine she’s next to her on the bed feeling her body shake. “I’m very glad you’re a fan,” Emmy says once she’s regained herself. She props herself up a little on the bed and moves the camera down her body to give Tessa another look. “Still like how it looks on me?” 

Tessa nods, and then inhales sharply, deciding to take her chance in steering the nature of the conversation. “I do. But,” she pauses to tuck her bottom lip in between her teeth and raise a single eyebrow. “I’d really like to see you out of the dress, too.” 

“Yeah?” Emmy says on an inhale. 

“Yeah,” Tessa says, not missing the sudden breathiness in her own voice. 

Then Emmy is smiling. “Good,” she says. “That’s really good. Because, uh, I was really trying and clearly failing earlier to imply that I wanted to initiate phone sex.” 

Nothing’s even happened and yet just the idea that that’s what Emmy wants, that this is where the conversation is hopefully headed has a warm flush creeping over her. Excitement, nervousness and anticipation running through her veins. “Yeah?” is all she can say, checking in to make sure. 

Emmy nods. “Yes, please.” 

“Then you should take off your dress,” the way she says is soft, but confident. Somewhere in between a request and a command. She likes being assertive, knows Emmy very much loves when she’s confident enough to take control, but she always wants to leave the decision to follow up to Emmy, letting the slightest hint of question hang on the end. “Please,” she adds with a smirk. 

“I should take off my dress,” Emmy repeats her words, nodding, but not yet moving from where she’s leaning on her elbow on the bed. 

“I would really, really like that, yeah.” 

“Okay,” Emmy says, sitting up a bit shifting on the bed, then the phone falls and Tessa is looking at the ceiling. 

“What are you doing?” she asks.

“I’m trying to take off my dress,” Emmy laughs, coming back into view. “I had to tape myself in so I wasn’t flashing everyone all night,” she huffs. “Now I’m trying to untape myself but I needed both hands. Sorry, that’s not very sexy.” 

Tessa doesn’t agree that it’s not sexy, or that at least it can’t be, she shakes her head. But Tessa can’t help but laugh back because she completely understands, had actually wondered as much earlier, with how the fabric is draped, how little it covered if she’d needed fashion tape to keep things in place. 

Though as much as she commiserates she really wants to see Emmy take it off. If she were there, in Toronto with her, it would be something she’d help with. Kissing each of Emmy’s shoulders as she helped slip the fabric over them, helping find the hidden zipper on the hip of the skirt, undoing it so the dress fell and pooled around her feet. 

Even if it’s unglamorous, watching as Emmy peels the fashion tape off her breasts so the dress will easily slip over each shoulder, she wants to watch. She wants to see her so that she can imagine she’s there, that it’s her hands working the zipper pull, her fingers sliding gently between the adhesive and Emmy’s skin, kissing the light red marks where she reacts to the tape every time. 

“Can you prop your phone up on something so I can see you?” she asks. 

Emmy looks around the room for a second then smiles and nods. “I think I can probably make that happen, if that’s what you want.” 

“That is very much what I want, babe,” Tessa pulls her phone in a little closer and bites her lip. 

Emmy is standing up and moving around her room, shuffling something around until she props her phone up on what Tessa assumes is the dresser, across from the foot of the bed. Then she stands in between the two, fully in view. 

“This good?” she asks, doing a little twirl, followed by a series of giggles. 

“Perfect,” Tessa says, taking in a deep breath before starting this whole thing again. She’s never done this before, phone sex, and though there will likely be some stumbling, she wants to fully commit. “So, can you take off your dress now?” 

“Bossy,” Emmy huffs with an exaggerated eye roll, putting her hands on her hips. 

Tessa laughs. “Shut up, you like it.” 

Emmy nods. “Yeah,” Tessa doesn’t miss how much breathier her voice has become. “I do.” 

With that Emmy starts to take off her dress, slowly, exaggerating each movement for Tessa’s benefit and likely to cover her own feelings of vulnerability and awkwardness at standing in front of a camera stripping. Tessa loves her for it, loves that she’s willing to do this for her. That she wants to do this, suggested it. 

When she finally undoes the zipper and pushes the dress over her hips, letting it fall to the floor, leaving her in nothing but a lacy black thong, Tessa tells her as much. “Fuck, Em...I love you,” she manages to get out. “So much.” 

Emmy smiles, taking a step closer to the camera. “I love you too,” she says, leaning forward and blowing a kiss through the screen. 

“I like this look even more than the dress,” Tessa says, feeling her body getting warm already. Feeling a familiar tightness in her lower stomach, a pulling that has her losing her breath just a bit. She really does love her so fucking much, she wishes she could reach through the screen and touch her, kiss her. 

“So, this is what I should wear to the next gala?” Emmy laughs. 

Tessa nods. “You’d get plenty of funding. Are those new underwear?” she asks, eyeing the thin black lace pulled low across Emmy’s hips, more delicate than what she usually wears. 

“New dress, new undies,” Emmy says, doing a little hip shimmy and then laughing at herself. It’s both endearing and sexy as hell. 

“Keep those on,” Tessa says. “For now, please.” 

She thinks Emmy says _Yeah_ , soft and breathy but then there is a clatter and the screen goes dark, clearly having fallen over from whatever it was leaning on. She hears Emmy say, “For fuck sakes,” as she goes to pick it up. Then she sees Emmy’s face again and she’s carrying the phone with her into the bed. 

“Hi,” she says with a soft smile once she’s settled, propping herself up on and elbow in the bed, holding the phone out in front of her so that Tessa has a clear view of her face and chest. 

“Hi back,” Tessa whispers. 

“Sooo,” Emmy says, dragging out the ‘o’ and trying not to laugh. 

“So,” Tessa repeats and then they are both laughing, neither exactly sure how to proceed.

She can tell Emmy is thinking of what to say next, unsure of what to ask. Tessa watches the blush creep up Emmy’s chest, she can actually see the colour as it seeps into her skin and spreads upwards. It’s one of her favourite things, how much and how intensely Emmy blushes. It’s always darkest across her chest, over her breastbone and up toward her neck, it eventually moves into her cheeks but her freckles are darker there, bold and heavily concentrated so it’s harder to see the colour creep through. She loves it. Loves how flustered Emmy gets when she realizes how obvious it is, it’s always her greatest tell. She blushes red when she’s embarrassed or getting turned on, the prettiest pink when she’s getting mildly flustered or Tessa whispers how beautiful she looks in her ear, and a deep cherry red when comes. 

Tessa knows Emmy is blushing now because she’s flustered but also, she hopes, getting a little turned on. She knows that like her tattoo suggests, in this area too not just in dance, Emmy prefers to let her body and her actions do the talking, expressing what her words cannot. She very much appreciates getting to see this side of Emmy, where she’s a little unsure and vulnerable, likes that for once they are on the same level, neither having done this before. Emmy is a very confident woman, she’s bright and bubbly, a literal ray of sunshine who swears like a trucker. She knows and is proud of who she is and goes for what she wants, but it’s a quiet assurity. In private she’s more subdued and would prefer to follow than to lead. Even though Emmy had been the one who had brought up the idea in the first place, Tessa doesn’t mind taking the reins on this one, like Em has been doing for so much of their relationship so far. 

“What do you want to happen now, babe?” Tessa asks, gently. 

Emmy’s blush deepens and she smiles shyly, tucking her chin into her chest a bit. “Well, uh, you seem to be a bit overdressed, compared to me.” It’s pretty cute, that the woman who just stood in front of a camera and stripped for her is nervous asking her to do the same. 

Tessa laughs. “It appears that way,” she says. “Would you like me to take something off?”

“Your shirt?” Emmy asks, with a little shrug. “Please.” 

Tessa laughs. “Just my shirt?”

Emmy bites her bottom lip and sucks in a breath. “For now, please,” Emmy repeats Tessa’s earlier words. “ I mean it’s a great shirt, really. Very canadian of you...but I want to see your boobs.” 

Tessa laughs, louder than she expected, first because the shirt she is wearing is an old long sleeve t-shirt, back from sometime around Vancouver. It’s from Roots, and is well worn in, with a faded green beaver across her chest. But she also laughs because this doesn’t surprise her at all. Emmy made it pretty clear from the beginning of their relationship that she is a big fan of Tessa’s breasts. Which Tessa didn’t understand at first given their size (though it seems silly since she greatly enjoys Emmy’s, which aren’t much larger). But she has grown to appreciate the appreciation, especially because Emmy’s love for them has taught her just how sensitive to Emmy’s touch they are. How much she can actually enjoy being touched there.

She shuffles back a bit on the couch, leaning her phone against the arm so that she can use both hands to peel off her shirt. Once it’s over her head she tosses it over the back of the couch and smiles at Emmy through the little screen. 

“I miss you,” Emmy says, with a sharp inhale. Before licking her lips. “I really want to touch you.”

“I wish I could touch you too, I want to kiss you so badly,” Tessa says. “Do you want to tell me how? What would you do if I were there?” 

She sees Emmy shift and reach out to the screen almost like she was going to demonstrate, to touch her through her phone, but then she quickly takes her hand away, shaking her head laughing a little at herself. It pulls at Tessa’s heart and she desperately wishes she could be in the same room with her. 

Emmy is closing her eyes and Tessa knows she’s picturing it. Imagining what the scene would look like if they were together. She’s such an incredibly visual and tactile person. She can listen to a piece of music and on the first listen picture how she or whoever she is choreographing for would move to encapsulate every note, every emotion. Can so easily translate what she sees in her head into beautiful movements. She can picture the exact mechanics of steps she’s never seen before. Tessa knows she is capable, and very good at describing what she sees, but her prefered method of teaching is let me show you. 

So, Tessa asks, “Can you show me? Show me what you’d be doing if you were with me.” 

“Yeah,” Emmy says, her voice so low Tessa can hardly hear it, her answer little more than a breath. Then she’s repositioning herself on the bed and adjusting her phone so Tessa can see more of her. “I’d start by kissing you,” she says.

Tessa sighs, she sighs with her whole being, her eyes falling closed just for a minute, just to imagine it, to go to that place. Because kissing Emmy is one of her absolute favourite things. She lays herself back a bit on the couch, taking her phone with her. Emmy, she imagines, would start off the kiss soft and slow, her legs straddling either side of Tessa’s hips, nipping lightly on her bottom lip. Tessa would grab her ass, right at the crease where it meets the inside of her thigh, where she is so sensitive, she’d gasp, giving Tessa the opportunity to deepen the kiss.

When she opens her eyes Emmy is smiling softly at her, her hand pressed flat across her stomach. When she sees Tessa is watching again she smirks and says, “Good to have you back,” while she slowly drags her hand over her skin towards her breasts, running her thumb underneath them before slowly circling one of her nipples. 

Tessa sucks in a sharp breath as she draws her hand up to do the same, just a feather light touch round and round her nipple but not quite touching, the way Emmy would start touching her. Just the tiniest bit teasing, building her anticipation before running her thumb over her nipple. She’d do the same with her tongue too, doesn’t even need to touch anywhere else and can manage to get her so close, which she didn’t really think was possible. Told Emmy as much early on, said “They aren’t really that sensitive.”

Emmy had then taken that as a challenge to prove her otherwise and succeeded. Tessa thinks of the last time they were together, in Vancouver, where Emmy had her falling apart three fingers stilled inside her, crooked upwards with a firm pressure but unmoving while she worked her nipples with her tongue and mouth, drawing her orgasm out slowly until she was gushing in Emmy’s hand. She doesn’t forget the satisfied smirk Emmy wore when she looked back up at her—her I told you so, face. 

“Are you thinking about your birthday?” Emmy’s voice brings her back to the moment. She has her eyebrows raised and is watching Tessa intently through the screen, her head tilted to the side a bit with a fond smile that contrasts the darkness in her eyes, how blown her pupils have gotten.

Tessa realizes that her other hand has migrated to the hem of her shorts. Her pinky and ring finger tucked just inside. “Yeah,” she admits, her voice lower, more hoarse than she expected. “Yeah.” 

“Me too,” Emmy smiles. “God, you were so wet,” Emmy pauses like she’s debating whether she should say the next thing she’s thinks. She runs her index finger along her bottom lip. “How wet are you right now?” 

Tessa makes a point of slowly sliding her hand into her shorts, dipping a finger into her folds. She knew already that’s she’s wet, soaked, but she moans and makes a bit of a show of checking. Sue her for getting a bit performative, but the gorgeous red flush creeping up over Emmy’s chest and into her cheeks at her reaction is worth the effort. “So wet,” she says, her voice sounds husky even to her own ears, a lower rasp than she’s used to. “Do you want to see?” she asks, but doesn’t wait for the answer before pulling her hand back out, dragging it across the skin of her stomach, hopes the camera picks up the trail she leaves against her skin. 

Emmy inhales sharply, “Yeah.” 

“I don’t know how well you can see in this light,” she says. “Maybe I should take these off?” at Emmy’s nod she starts to peel her shorts off.

“Fuck,” Emmy says, the word dragging across her tongue. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck,” it seems all she’s capable of saying as she shifts again in her bed, one leg crossing over the other. Tessa watches her chest, noticing the quick rise and fall and the deepening redness. 

“You should touch yourself,” she says, the command comes more easily than she thought. The further along they get in this the easier it feels, the more confident she becomes, or maybe just more desperate for release. “It’s your turn to tell me how wet you are.”

Emmy nods and Tessa’s view gets a little shaky as Emmy moves her phone, holding it in one hand while the other travels down her body, rubbing herself over the thin lace of her underwear briefly before shifting them to the side. Tessa’s view is from above, Emmy, she can tell, is trying to hold her phone aloft, so Tessa can see as much of her as fits in the frame. She can tell she’s struggling to keep it steady as she runs her fingers through her folds, slips two, maybe three, Tessa can’t quite tell, inside herself. She knows she has though, by Emmy’s little moan and how her eyes flutter closed. Tessa finds herself clenching around nothing, moves her own hand to press on her clit to offer herself some relief. 

She sighs from deep in her chest. They are both so wound up, and it’s been so long since they’ve gotten to be together that at this point she doesn’t think either of them will last long now. She knows for certain it won’t take her long to get there. 

“I miss you so much,” Tessa says. “I wish I were there with you. That it was me touching you. I really miss touching you,” she stutters a bit over her words, working to get them out as she focuses on circling her own clit with two of her fingers, watching Emmy and trying to form something that sounds semi coherent. “God, I want to feel how wet you are right now.” 

She and Emmy don’t really talk during sex, not like this. She isn’t used to this. Maybe later she’ll think back on it and feel awkward or embarrassed, but right now, now she doesn’t care and for once she finds herself speaking without thinking, telling Emmy what they’d be doing if she were there. How she’d kiss her, lips trailing down her neck, over her chest, down her stomach. And she knows every part of Emmy is always so hyper sensitive to her touch, so she can imagine how she’d shudder, goosebumps prickling her skin when she kisses the freckle just below her right breast, as she moves lower and lower down her body before reaching where she really wants her. She knows they’d be there now too, the goosebumps, along with the red flush spreading out further across her chest and her neck. 

“Fuck. I miss you,” Emmy pants out eventually, when Tessa starts babbling something she thinks may only be semi coherent about how she’d lightly nip at that sensitive skin just on the inside of Emmy’s thighs, a spot that always gets her to clench in anticipation, before reaching her center with her tongue and lips. She loves watching all Emmy’s body’s little (and big) reactions to her touch. And she doesn’t miss the way Emmy’s started rolling her hips, moving against the heel of her hand. 

“Are you close?” Tessa asks. She knows that she is, can feel the tightening in her stomach, the shaking in her thighs, but wants to make sure Emmy gets there too.

One of the things she’s learned about her in their time together is that Emmy is super sensitive, can come very quickly and easily for Tessa, but sometimes struggles to get there herself. Calls what she can give herself baby orgasms, not quite able to get the right angles or stimulation herself without help. Tessa should have thought of that earlier, asked if she’d brought her vibrator with her to Toronto. She’ll keep it in mind for next time.

Emmy is nodding and her “Yeah,” long and drawn out. “Yeah,” she says again. “So close, but…”

Tessa’s breathing is heavy, she’s slipped first two, then a third finger inside herself, pumping slowly, trying to hold herself off until Emmy gets there. “What do you need, baby?” she asks. 

“I kinda...I liked it when you were talking,” Emmy says. “Can you-?”

“Yeah,” Tessa is nodding, repositioning her phone that’s slipping in her hand. “Yeah,” she says again. “Can you touch yourself like— Do what I would,” she starts.

Emmy listens as Tessa talks, follows her instructions, then repeats back what she’s doing to herself. Half babbling she lists her favourite things Tessa does to her. Like the slightest twist of her fingers, or the fluttering of her fingertips, or how she scratches her nails down her stomach while she works her clit with her tongue. It isn’t long before Emmy’s letting out a string of curses, and then she drops her phone and Tessa can only listen. She thinks Emmy must have dropped her phone somewhere on the bed near her hips or on her stomach, because she can hear how wet she is, can hear Emmy’s fingers as they move. Then she’s pretty sure she hears Emmy say I love you as she falls over the edge, just before she falls silent. That’s what pushes Tessa over the precipice herself with three fingers inside her, grinding against the heel of her hand, she gushes into her own palm. 

It’s a minute before she comes back down, and realizes at some point Emmy has picked her phone back up and is smiling at her sweetly, a soft crinkle in the corners of her eyes. 

“So should we call that first time a success?” she asks, trying to hold back a little laugh. Her hair where it was pinned to one side has come loose, cascading over her shoulders and onto her bare chest in messy loose waves, she looks a little like a mermaid. Tessa notices a bobby pin hanging from a few strands somewhere near her ear and smiles. 

“I’d say it worked out well, yeah,” she’s still trying to catch her breath and regain herself, sitting back up on the couch and tucking her legs underneath her. “Should we try it again sometime?” she asks with a little bit of a smirk. 

“Same time next week?” Emmy shoots back. 

“You think you can wait that long?” she laughs. 

Emmy shakes her head. “I really miss you,” she says, her voice softer now. 

“Me too,” Tessa smiles. “Under three weeks now,” she says.”

“Sixteen days,” Emmy pauses, checking something. “And nine hours.” 

Tessa raises her eyebrows at her. 

Emmy shrugs, the blush that had just started to fade pinking up again. “I may have a countdown in my phone.”

Tessa laughs. “Oh this you’ll put in a calendar… ...but not you know work functions, or when your phone bill is due.” 

“This,” Emmy says, putting an exaggerated emphasis on her word. “Is important to me.” 

After they’ve said their good nights, and repeated their I love yous half a dozen times, and finally hung up, Emmy texts her a screenshot of her countdown, titled _Tessa’s home!!!!!_


	2. what people in the world think of you is really none of your business

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the 30 or so of you so dedicated to reading this. All of your comments have been so lovely and inspiring. I’m so happy this story has reached anyone at all, let alone all of you. I have enjoyed writing this so very very much. 
> 
> This chapter explores more of the the development between Tessa and Emmy’s relationship and some of the problems they encounter. Also, maybe Scott goes looking to his best friend for some advice this time around. 
> 
> I want to thank E and C again for all their help on this entire work. E thank you so, so very much for putting up with my constant questioning and reading this scene by scene as soon as they’re written. 
> 
> Happy holidays to everyone!! 
> 
> Same as before the chapter title is a Martha Graham quote.

As much as Tessa goes to Montreal for a few days for work here and there and makes plans when she can just to see Emmy, it isn’t enough. Especially not after such a long stretch apart. So it makes sense that Emmy comes to Ontario to see her, ends up planning to spend a large part of the rest of the summer there. It’s easier this way too, Emmy is much less visible than Tessa is, publicly, and Tessa worries that people may catch on that she’s seen in Montreal far more than is necessary.

They meet in Toronto often, since it’s summer and Emmy has no classes at the University and she’s been working more and more in Toronto anyways, teaching workshops, and getting to choreograph for a commercial and dance in another—finding confidence in her own performance abilities, even though her main passion remains in teaching injury prevention and choreography, she loves to perform. Emmy also spends a few days with Tessa in London here and there, and Tessa takes her to the cottage on Lake Huron when she goes. 

It also makes sense for Emmy to visit Ontario because that’s where her grandparents live, about forty-five minutes south of Toronto. Emmy visits them as often as she can, which she admits isn’t often enough. Today, Tessa is making the drive with her to meet them for the first time. She never got far enough in any previous relationships for the whole meet the parents moment, and Scott’s parents she’s known since she was seven. It’s not exactly like she’s nervous, grandparents love her, she’s assured Emmy of this. She’s always believed she has an old soul, a 70 year old stuck in the body of a 29 year old. So, she’s sure she’ll be able to find something to talk about with them. But these people are Emmy’s world, her whole family, they hold her heart. They raised Emmy and Tessa wants nothing more than for them to approve of her as Emmy’s partner. The weight of that desire feels heavy, heavier still the closer they get.

These two people took in a sad, broken little girl, who suffered the loss of her only parent, when they themselves were sad and broken at the death of their only child. When they were left wondering what mistakes they made that could have lead to the battle Emmy’s mom faced with her mental health—from what little bits and pieces Emmy has shared, they did all they knew how to at the time, offering financial support and a place for Emmy whenever it was needed but they were still unsure if they were offering the right emotional support. 

All of what happened could have jaded Emmy, she could have become hardened by that experience, she could have fallen victim to her own mental health struggles. But these two wonderful people, whom Tessa has yet to meet, picked her up. They made sure she was loved and cherished and had all the support she needed. They grew and learned how to cope as a family. They encouraged her dreams of being like her mom and becoming a ballerina, even when it meant moving to Toronto at such a young age. And finally, when Emmy came out ten years ago they accepted her for who she was without question, they loved her without stipulation. These people helped shape Emmy into the ray of sunshine she is, they paved the way for her optimism and helped her learn how to harness her fiery spirit and passion into creating art. They helped shape the beautiful person Tessa fell in love with. And she doesn’t know them yet but is eternally grateful.

“Grandpa, George, loves his garden,” Emmy says as they turn off the QEW into her hometown. “It’s his thing. Don’t step on the grass, stay on the paving stones. Also, he will probably send you home with a bag full of vegetables. They always have more tomatoes and green beans than my grandma knows what to do with. And this year I think some zucchini and maybe lettuce.” 

“Is it worth telling them I have no idea what to do with that either?” Tessa answers. 

Emmy shakes her head. “Just take them and I’ll cook for you or give them to your mom.” 

Tessa laughs. “Okay,” she says, watching as Emmy easily navigates their way through the quaint downtown towards the base of the escarpment where her grandparents live. 

“And I told you before, my grandma, Gertie, loves to cook. She taught me everything I know. And she will definitely expect us to stay for dinner if you’re up for it.” 

“Of course,” Tessa says, willing to do whatever Emmy wants. She wants to see where Emmy came from, learn all she can about her life.

“She also loves to gossip,” Emmy smiles. “So be prepared to hear all the comings and goings of every neighbour.” Emmy is quiet for a moment, contemplating as she turns onto a dead end street right at the base of the mountain. “My grandparents were great when I came out, like they never said anything bad or made me question myself...but I didn’t know if they really got it or were fully okay with it until maybe two years later when my grandpa asked me if I liked the Lady Gaga,” she laughs lightly, chuckling to herself at the memory. “When I said I did, he told me he’d heard the song Born this Way and thought of me, so he’d downloaded her album for me from the internet. He was so excited about it. This is the man who wouldn’t let me use Facebook or MSN on the family computer in case it gave it a virus… but he went on a torrenting site and stole the whole album for me.” 

Tessa laughs and finds Emmy’s hand to give it a squeeze. “That’s so sweet.” 

“It really was. I still have the CD he made somewhere and I still play it when I need to feel that support,” she’s pulled into a driveway now, and cut the engine but doesn’t move to get out just yet. “I know you’re worried Tess, but you shouldn’t be. They have their flaws, but they are really the kindest, most supportive people and they will love you, they ask about you everytime I talk to them.” 

Tessa nods and as Emmy starts unbuckling to get out of the car Tessa finally takes in their surroundings. The house they are parked in front of is a low, well maintained bungalow probably from the 60’s on a beautiful tree lined street that ends right at the base of the Niagara escarpment. The lawn and garden are immaculate and they are parked on a pink stone driveway in front of the attached garage. 

“So this is where you grew up?” Tessa asks. 

Emmy nods and smiles, though it’s a little sad around the edges, doesn’t quite meet her eyes. “Actually, not including ballet school where I mostly lived at school in Toronto, only three years of my childhood I didn’t live here… there’s a basement apartment around the back and that’s where mom and I lived until I was six and then we lived in a little apartment in Hamilton, before…” she lets her voice trail off and shrugs her shoulders, Tessa feels a tug at her heart. She knows even though it was nearly twenty years ago it’s still difficult sometimes. She leans over and kisses Emmy, just lightly on the corner of her mouth.

“Uh, should we go in?” Tessa asks, her cheeks pinking when she sees a face peeking out the front window at them.

Emmy laughs, it’s big and bright and fills the entire car with it’s sound. “She’s so damn nosy!” 

Emmy’s grandmother, Gertie, is at the door waiting for them by the time they get out of the car and make it to the house. She’s a tiny woman. Emmy who is about an inch or two shorter than Tessa seems tall in comparison, she can’t even be five feet and is probably no more than 90 pounds. She smiles at the two of them holding hands as they make their way up the steps to the large front deck, then she turns back to the inside of the house and hollars. “George! They’re here!” Her voice is loud, carrying down the street and it makes Tessa smile, thinking of Emmy and that first dance class she took with her. 

There’s a mumbled, “What?” from inside the house and Gertie is calling out again. “Em is here!” 

She turns back to Emmy and Tessa as soon as they’ve reached the front door, smiling, so Tessa puts on her best smile back. “Well aren’t you even more beautiful in person,” is the first thing she says to Tessa. 

Tessa can feel herself blushing, and see Emmy shaking her head a little next to her. “Uh, thank you,” she manages, holding out her hand to shake. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”

Gertie takes Tessa’s hand in both of hers to shake. “We are so glad to have you here, Tessa.” 

Then there is a throat clearing just inside the house, Tessa looks up to see a man who must be Emmy’s grandfather George, he’s at least six feet with cropped white hair and glasses that have probably been the same since the eighties. “Don’t keep them out on the damn stoop,” he says as he approaches. 

Once they are all inside George wraps Emmy up in a tight hug, kissing the top of her head. “How’s my M&M?” he asks as he releases her. 

Tessa raises her brow in question. “M&M?” she smiles. 

“Emmy Mae,” she shrugs. “Em and M…”

“M&M’s, the peanut ones were also always her mom’s favourites,” Gertie says, closing the front door. 

“It’s sweet,” Tessa says. Emmy never told her she had any nicknames before just Em. Maybe because it was something she wanted to keep for her family or she wonders if Emmy isn’t overly fond of it but indulges her grandfather. 

“Mhm,” Emmy says with a slight shake of her head and a very subtle eye roll, and yeah Tessa guesses it’s the latter. 

Then Tessa is being wrapped up in George’s arms just as Emmy was. She doesn’t expect a hug but she’s so used to being hugged, or offering hugs to strangers that she immediately and automatically hugs back, but she reminds herself this isn’t a stranger and it doesn’t take long for her to relax into it. It’s such a warm welcome and most of Tessa’s worries melt away. “Welcome,” he says pulling away. “This one,” he nods to Emmy, “hasn’t brought home a girlfriend before and we are very excited she finally trusts us enough not to embarrass her.” 

This surprises Tessa, she knows in her undergrad Emmy had at least one serious girlfriend and another semi serious during her first Masters. But it also thrills her just a bit, to have this first, to know that Emmy thinks this is going to last, enough for her to bring Tessa home. She tries to keep her face neutral though, just shares a glance with Emmy who shrugs and smiles.

“You’re still pretty embarrassing,” Emmy says laughing and sitting down on the little wooden bench with an embroidered cat cushion next to the door to take off her shoes, Tessa does the same. “But I think Tess can handle it.”

There’s some more polite conversation as they walk into the kitchen, the hub of the small but well kept house, to the right of the foyer. Tessa isn’t quite sure what to say as she takes in her surroundings, trying to sound engaged while also trying to relax herself and not say anything stupid. She knows this ends up making her stiff, sounding like the media version of herself, but she wants them to like her—and she hates herself a bit for this, but she thinks, if they don’t, it’ll hurt less if it isn’t the real her. Emmy, she’s sure, will bug her about it later. 

After a tour of the rest of the house, Tessa and Emmy are sitting in Emmy’s childhood bedroom, at the end of the hall. There is a big corner window looking out into the street, with white curtains. The walls are a pale pink and the furniture is all white, a queen sized bed with a white and pink comforter, a dresser and a vanity with a chair. There are a pair of pointe shoes hung on the wall above the bed. 

“It’s very pink,” Tessa notes. 

Emmy laughs, hard, looking around the room with her eyes all scrunched up in mirth. “I didn’t spend a lot of time in here past eleven,” she says, which of course Tessa gets, having moved away from home at thirteen. “So other than new sheets I can’t say much has changed.” 

Tessa notices a framed photo on one of the night side tables, she recognizes young Emmy from her own memories of when they first met. She’d put her at maybe seven or eight in the photo, missing her two front teeth, beaming up at a woman with sandy blonde hair and blue eyes, the woman who is sitting cross legged in the grass is looking at Emmy like she is her entire world, her own personal sunshine and Tessa knows this must be her mom. She is probably younger than Tessa and Emmy are now. Her features are a lot sharper than Emmy’s, angular where Emmy’s face is more round, with lighter eyes and hair, but they have the exact same smile. 

Emmy catches her studying the picture and smiles. “I must look like my dad.” 

“You have her smile though,” Tessa says. “This is a really beautiful picture.” 

“It’s my favourite,” Emmy says, moving to sit closer to Tessa on the bed, leaning her head on Tessa’s shoulder. 

“Thank you,” Tessa says, squeezing Emmy’s thigh, then resting her hand there. “For sharing this part of your life with me.” 

“I want to,” Emmy says. “Besides, I’m honestly excited for you to get to know them, I think you’ll really get along.”

“I hope so,” Tessa says, cuddling in closer, just taking a moment to feel Emmy breathing steadily against her, soaking in her warmth, letting them both be comforted by their closeness. 

Just then the door creaks open and Gertie is standing in the door frame, Tessa sits up straight, moving away from Emmy, who just sighs and shakes her head with a playful exasperation. 

“What do you take in your tea, Tess?” Gertie asks, pretending she didn’t notice how close the two of them were just a moment ago, seeming to be unbothered by it anyways. 

“Uh, just milk would be absolutely wonderful, thank you,” she says, her voice and demeanour automatically falling to public Tessa, a little too soft and sweet and not quite herself. She doesn’t mean for it, really, she wants to stop but it’s hard for her sometimes, meeting new people like this. She’s never wanted so much for people to like her, to accept her. 

“Thanks Grandma,” Emmy says. “We’ll be right out.” 

“Take your time, sweetie,” Gertie says, stepping back out of the room. “I made some cookies yesterday. Oatmeal chocolate chip, I’ll put some of those out too.” 

Once she’s gone back down the hall Emmy takes Tessa’s cheeks in her hands and pulls her in for a kiss. Nothing deep or lingering just sweet and comforting. “Just be yourself, Tess, they’ll love you. It’s really hard not to.” 

**

“We see you on the TV,” George says over dinner, a homemade spinach and goat cheese tart or maybe a quiche, Tessa isn’t really quite sure except she knows that it’s very good. “Those commercials, Gertie what are those for? Skating? Maybe it’s cream? Makeup?” 

“It’s Nivea, George,” Gertie says. “It’s skin care. You know like how I get Este Lauder…”

Tessa is about say thank you or something just as ridiculous and launch into a little spiel about her work with Nivea and why it’s great, but Emmy groans into her hands as she looks between her grandparents, resting her elbows on the table and Tessa can’t help but laugh. It’s really sweet and so real, the scene in front of her. This is her girlfriend and the most important people in her life and they are so kind and welcoming and made her dinner so she tries to relax. 

“It’s still a bit weird,” she says with a shrug. “Being on TV...a little surreal to be honest. I actually haven’t seen one on air yet, Emmy’s either, I’ve been away for so much of the summer.” 

“Oh we’ve just seen that one!” Gertie says excitedly, beaming with pride. “I haven’t seen her do ballet in so long it was lovely, though maybe they could have had her in more clothing.” 

Emmy flushes bright red. “I will just have to give them your number babe,” she says to Tessa, and Tessa’s heart flutters a bit at the ease with which she uses a pet name in front of her grandparents. “And then you can get a call anytime either of us is on TV. Then they can stop calling me a few times a week to make sure that the pretty girl in that one commercial, the one who skates is in fact my girlfriend… Every. Other. Day… I swear.” 

Tessa snorts at that, but can imagine it from what she’s seen so far of George and Gertie. Can see them calling Emmy whenever a Nivea commercial comes on to say that they saw her girlfriend on the TV. She can only imagine how often it will be once Emmy’s own commercial, the one where she dances for Spotify Canada, starts airing regularly. 

“I wouldn’t mind hearing about when you’re on TV,” she smiles, extra sweet. “I’d love to get those calls.” 

Emmy smiles back at her with a fond tilt of her head and the conversation continues on. Tessa feels more and more relaxed the more they talk. Gertie does gossip, telling Tessa all about the neighbours across the street who had just poured a significant amount of money into renovations on their house only to have the basement flood and how the insurance has been a pain so they’re staying with family, how contractors have been there at all hours but never seem to do anything. 

Tessa finds herself talking about her own renovations, when she’d bought her house in London years ago. How that whole process took much longer and was much more involved, and maybe a bit more expensive than her twenty-one year old self had anticipated. 

“We did little projects just bits at a time,” Gertie says. “We redid all the floors about eight years ago, the windows about six and we got all the main rooms repainted last year.” 

“Growing up the whole house had this beautiful plush green carpet,” Emmy laughs. “Reminded me of grass, it was really lovely. I miss it. Complimented the pink in my room so well.” 

Tessa laughs, throwing her head back with it. “There was some really great 70’s shag covering the original hardwood in my house, I think it had originally been orange maybe? It was in really rough shape,” she laughs some more, picturing it. “I don’t know how I saw the potential I did in the house, but I wanted it so badly.” She finds herself launching into all the work she picked away at, any reservation she had left falling away as she tries to describe the time she offered to help the contractors once and nearly broke her hand with a hammer. They didn’t let her offer anything but design ideas after that. 

After dinner there is more tea and apple pie eaten in the living room while the nightly news plays in the background. 

“I make the pies in big batches and freeze them,” Gertie says. “They are Emmy’s favourite so I always take one out whenever she comes to visit. I can bring an extra up from the basement freezer for the two of you to take with you,” she smiles.

“Oh wow, that would be great,” Tessa says around her fork, not even caring about her manners for just a moment. It’s really good pie. “This is so good.” 

“The trick is to pick the right apples, nice juicy ones and then cut the amount of sugar you add in half,” Gertie instructs and Tessa nods enthusiastically as she takes another bite, as if she may actually attempt to bake a pie one day. 

“I get birthday pie rather than cake,” Emmy says, serving herself a second slice. “I love it so much, even when I was little I always asked for birthday pie!” 

“Oh,” George gets up. “Gertie, don’t we have a picture of Em blowing out her candles in a slice of pie?” 

Gertie nods and gets up with him, walking to the built in cabinets next to the large brick fireplace. When she opens the bottom door Tessa can see the shelves packed with neatly organized photo albums, and it reminds her a lot of the ones her mom keeps, labelled by date or activity. Gertie returns with one labelled _1998-1999 Em _. The cover is a soft floral print, faded and peeling in the corners where it has clearly been opened frequently, handled often. Tessa realized that these years would have included the period Emmy’s mom passed, and wonders if this volume has received a little more love than the rest.__

__Gertie sits next to Tessa on the couch and opens the album towards the end, directly to the right page to show a group of pictures of Emmy only a few months after Tessa would have first known her. She’s wearing a black witch’s hat that sits lopsided on her head, her wild hair sticking out from under it at odd angles, halloween decorations hung behind her and she’s blowing out a number ten candle stuck directly in a slice of pie that had to have been the size of her head. Emmy sits on the other side of Tessa, leaning over her shoulder to look._ _

__“Little me was pretty cute,” she smiles and lets out a breath, resting her head gently on Tessa shoulder, finding her hand to squeeze. Tessa quickly looks up to see if George and Gertie have noticed, if they have they haven’t reacted. Tessa knows that these are Emmy’s grandparents and if she’s comfortable being openly affectionate in front of them it’s okay and she’s okay with it, but there’s always this nagging bit of anxiety, when they aren’t completely alone, of what others might think. She hates that she feels this way sometimes, because she knows it doesn’t matter. She loves Emmy and she wants to share that. She also realizes, slower than maybe she should have, that this photo, Emmy’s tenth birthday would have been her first without her mother. She squeezes her hand back, gripping it tightly._ _

__“You were a super cute little birthday witch,” she says, very briefly leaning her head against Emmy’s, where it’s still resting on her shoulder._ _

__Then George is getting up to clear their dishes and Emmy jumps up to help, nearly knocking Tessa over. Emmy carefully stacks the powder blue dessert plates and forks, kissing both Tessa and then her grandmother on the cheek quickly as she takes them before sauntering off to the kitchen. George gathers their used tea cups and follows, a slight limp to his step that wasn’t as present earlier._ _

__Tessa moves to help but Gertie shakes her head. “It’s their thing,” she says. “Loading the dishwasher together after supper. They’ve got a system.” So, Tessa nods and settles back into the couch. “Oh!” Gertie exclaims, her excitement nearly shaking her whole body. “I think I have a few pictures of you in here!”_ _

__Tessa raises her eyebrows in question. “Me?”_ _

__“Oh yes,” Gertie says, flipping through the album, carefully moving each sheet on the metal rings. “From ballet camp! There were a bunch from the disposable camera we got for Em that summer, though not sure how many of those ended up in focus. And we have a few from the parents day when we all came to watch you dance.”_ _

__She finds the pages she’s looking for, and there Tessa is. The first picture is just her face super close up like the camera was only a foot from her, the little freckles that were beginning to dot her skin, bright and clear like little stars on her forehead and nose, she’s smiling, maybe mid laugh. This is clearly one of the pictures Emmy took, nineteen years ago now. Tessa doesn’t remember this picture in particular, but she does remember Emmy’s little Kodak camera. She recalls the two of them arranging their ballet slippers just so and attempting the nine and ten year olds version of an artful photo. She remembers stealing it to take a picture of Emmy sticking out her tongue, her bun loose and lopsided before Tessa helped her fix it (Emmy’s freckles unlike Tessa’s are mostly on her cheeks and bridge of her nose, dark even then and impossible to cover but hardly anywhere else). That photo is next to the one of Tessa in the album. She remembers the two of them taking pictures of the hallway outside their dorm, the door of the ballet studio they danced in. All these memories she hardly knew she still had come flooding back, and she understands now why her mom kept every photo of all four of her kids, because they are the keys to the memories that live inside them._ _

__On the next page Tessa recognizes the photo that the CBC had when they’d interviewed her and Scott last year. Well not quite the same, that one she found out later had been from her mom, but it’s almost the same shot, just from the other side of the room. Next to it, must have been a moment or two later. They are still standing in their little leotards, hair pinned tightly into buns, holding hands waiting their turn to cross the floor but Emmy is looking at Tessa her face scrunched up in laughter, you can almost hear it through the photo and Tessa is smiling at her._ _

__“We’re so glad the two of you found each other again, once you grew up,” Gertie starts, leaning closer to Tessa and pointing to the photo she’s been looking at, where Emmy is laughing. “That was the same year we lost her mom, Tara.”_ _

__“I’m so sorry,” Tessa says, but Gertie waves her off._ _

__“It’s alright, it was a long time ago,” she says. “Emmy was so little and I think for a long time thought it was her fault. She was having a hard time with everything, we didn’t even want to send her to the camp, but she insisted. That girl was determined, I swear she would have packed a bag and marched herself to the bus, she said, and I quote, ‘it’s the only thing that will make me happy’, so we let her go. And then she went and she met you, and she was so happy. This,” Gertie runs her finger over the sheet of plastic covering the photo. “Was the first time we’d seen her smiling in so long, I cried after we left. And I remember it was you specifically because she wouldn’t stop talking about Tessa for months after. I’d wished I’d gotten your mother’s phone number then, at the parents day.”_ _

__“I had no idea,” she says, her voice quiet. Her heart aches for that little girl, and she had no idea the impact that she’d had, just a little girl herself. Scott’s voice rings in her head saying, It’s like fate or some shit. And maybe it is, but she’ll never, ever admit he’s right, she’s just glad to have found Emmy again now._ _

__“She was sad when you didn’t end up accepting a spot at the school,” Gertie turns to Tessa, and must immediately register the pang of guilt Tessa is feeling. “But she made new friends and being away I think, having a new environment and structure it was really good for her, and it gave George and I chance to get our own barings to be better for her. And anyways, nearly three years ago she came home for a visit and it happened again, she couldn’t stop smiling, or talking about _Tessa_. We knew it had to be the same one, be you.” _ _

__Tessa can’t help herself, she wraps Gertie in a hug. Squeezing her tight. It’s the only thing she can think to do. She tries to convey all her gratitude for Gertie and George and what they’ve done to help make Emmy who she is, and her sadness, her empathy for the loss they’ve had to live into this one gesture. Gertie squeezes her back just as tightly. “Thank you,” Tessa says softly. “For sharing that story with me.”_ _

__Tessa looks up and Emmy is standing, leaning against the door frame between the kitchen and living room watching them, her hand pressed flat to her chest._ _

__“Sorry I didn’t pick ballet,” Tessa says to her, letting Gertie go._ _

__“Don’t ever be sorry for that,” Emmy says. “Look at everything you’ve done because you didn’t.”_ _

__**_ _

__“They are so lovely Em,” Tessa says as they drive back to London, planning to spend a few days at Tessa’s house there, just enjoying being together, before things get busy again. There’s an apple pie in the back that Tessa plans on making tomorrow—possibly for breakfast._ _

__“They really are,” Emmy turns to her and smiles, the glow of the street lamps flashing over her features as they pass under them, lighting up her eyes. Her smile is small, soft, the corners of her eyes crinkling just a bit, it’s just a genuinely happy, easy smile._ _

__Tessa is doing the driving this time, because her amazing, wonderful, beautiful girlfriend can’t see at night without her glasses and has somehow managed to lose them, again—this will be the second lost pair since they started dating. Tessa feels like she ought to just order some for her, considering it will probably be weeks before Emmy gets around to remembering it herself._ _

__It drives Tessa a little nuts but she loves her so much that all her quirks seem endearing in some way. “You’re amazing,” she says, trying to keep her eyes on the road. Sometimes it baffles her, everything Emmy has gone through, dealt with, and still come out the other side as wonderfully kind and full of joy and life the way she is, so unguarded and caring—even if a bit absent-minded and disorganized on occasion._ _

__Emmy scrunches up her nose and huffs out a little laugh. “As long as you keep thinking that.”_ _

__“It’s true,” Tessa says, reaching to take a sip of her Tim Horton’s coffee from the cup holder, it’s late for coffee but the drive will take at least an hour and a half so they stopped at the drive-thru before they hit the highway. “I love you.”_ _

__“Love you too,” Emmy hums, holding the rim of her own coffee against her lips, just breathing it in. “I’m so glad you got to meet them, they loved you too, you know. I’ve never seen them quite so, I don’t know— open? It made me so happy, and that’s because of you Tess.”_ _

__Tessa lets out a sigh, feeling herself relax just at Emmy’s assurance, she didn’t realize she needed to hear it. She knows Emmy was joking but there are few things she could imagine making her happier than Gertie calling her to gush anytime Emmy comes on the TV. Even if she wanted to just call to gab about the neighbours, having Emmy’s grandparents want to talk to her, to include her would mean the world to her. Hopefully they do really like her enough that one day they get there._ _

__They drive without talking for a bit, Emmy singing along to all the songs on the radio, even when she doesn’t know them. Tessa doesn’t mind, she has such a beautiful voice, even when she messes up half the lyrics. Tessa listens to Emmy sing, while watching the road and the shadows and lights that look like they’re dancing across the pavement as they pass. There is so little on this stretch, Tessa usually doesn’t pay such close attention, honestly she rarely ever drives this long herself. When they’re skating together Scott usually drives her, and Emmy drove them the way there for this trip. She flexes her fingers, trying to relax her grip on the wheel, rolling her shoulders back so they aren’t so tight by her ears._ _

__Emmy reaches over, gives her right shoulder a quick rub, reminding her without words to relax, not to be so tense._ _

__“I know I’ve told you about how great my grandparents were after I came out, I mean you saw them, they really are so wonderful and accepting and god they really do love you...but have I told you how absolutely terrified I was? I chickened out like four times and just kept blowing off coming home to visit.”_ _

__Tessa shakes her head, she knows it must not have been easy, even if they were supportive, but she didn’t know she had ever been so scared._ _

__“They’re really conservative, they’ve lived most of their lives in this relatively small, largely Christian community… and I know they’re not particularly religious, even if they were raised that way, but it’s hard for those values not to rub off sometimes,” Emmy starts, her voice even. “And, it took me until I was an adult to understand why, but they were relatively strict and really protective. Once when I was seventeen I came home for the weekend and went to the movies with friends, we came home later than I thought just by maybe an hour and they freaked out, had been calling all my friends parents and I’d been having a tough time at school—being told I was too short and too muscular for ballet, struggling with my grades and moods and pain in my ankle—and I just wanted to relax so I lashed out. And I know now that they were just worried, given everything...but I think someone said something about being disappointed and after that I was just I was so afraid of being a disappointment to them.”_ _

__“I’m so sorry, you’re not a disappointment, no. And of course you weren't then...but I get that feeling,” because she completely does, felt the same way._ _

__“So I was terrified, I definitely cried...I think they thought something was seriously wrong because I was crying more than I did when I ruptured my achilles and couldn’t do pointe anymore,” Tessa is always in awe of how open Emmy is with her, when she’s ready, she loves her so much for it, always makes her want to be vulnerable and share in return. “But, then I got the words out and the only concern they had, maybe just a question, was whether or not I’d still want to have kids, since it wouldn’t just happen.”_ _

__Tessa freezes, working hard to keep her eyes trained on the road, and her breathing steady, her grip tightens around the steering wheel again. She’s not sure if Emmy meant for it to be a lead in conversation, knowing her probably not, but the opening is there and she can’t leave it now. They’ve been so open with everything to this point._ _

__She hesitates for just a moment, aware of Emmy’s eyes or her. “And, uh, do you?” Tessa asks. “Kids, is that something that you do want, eventually?”_ _

__Emmy pauses, shifting in her seat, fiddling with her seatbelt and Tessa realizes belatedly, asking that question, if Emmy hadn’t realized the lead in with her statement, right here when she’s trapped in a moving car, probably was unfair. “You don’t have to answer,” she says, even though she realizes she really does want the answer. “If you aren’t ready.”_ _

__Emmy shakes her head. “No, no...uh, it’s okay. It’s good,” she laughs. “I just didn’t expect it. I should have though. Um, I do. I think. Yeah. I want to be a mom, at some point. I do know that, but I haven’t really given it much thought beyond that, honestly.”_ _

__“Okay,” Tessa says, swallowing and trying to focus on the road. Not quite sure what answer she expected or wanted._ _

__“Tess,” Emmy prompts, getting Tessa to look over at her, if only briefly, her eyes are wide, expectant. “Do you?”_ _

__Tessa isn’t sure what to say for a moment, she’s never really thought much about it. She was never in a relationship where it would have come up or been something she remotely wanted, not with anyone before and definitely not while competing. She honestly didn’t know how she’d feel when Emmy admitted that one day yes, it’s what she wants. But the idea doesn’t scare her, not like she thought it might. She can even almost picture it, in the future, a few years from now, holding a little baby against her chest, kissing their downy soft hair, holding a tiny hand in hers. It wasn’t something she thought she necessarily wanted for herself, she doesn’t want motherhood enough to do that on her own she knows that, but with someone...with Emmy she thinks, even though it’s too early to think about that. But she can picture that too, Emmy with a little red headed baby dancing circles around the kitchen, singing softly to every song on the radio, can practically see the joy motherhood would bring her._ _

__“It’s not really something I thought of,” she says after a while. “I’ve never had a big urge. But yeah with...with the right person, yeah, I think I’d want that,” she tries to keep her voice even, tries not to give herself away. Tries not to blurt _if that’s what you want, that’s what I want_. _ _

__Emmy smiles and takes her hand. “Okay.”_ _

__**_ _

__Emmy is curled up on the couch in a t-shirt and her boy shorts underwear, reading. It had been cool and rainy for the past few days, so Tessa had turned off the air conditioner. It’s warm again today but she hasn’t bothered to turn it back on and the family room has heated up a fair bit in the sun, prompting Emmy to not bother putting pants on after her shower. And Tessa finds herself sweating after finishing her body weight workout._ _

__Prying herself off her yoga mat on the floor she shoots a smile over Emmy’s way, perfectly aware that Emmy’s been half reading, half watching Tessa workout for the last 45 minutes. Emmy bites at her bottom lip and cocks her head, cheeks pinking as she pretends to be embarrassed at having been caught staring. She’s not. Not at all. Tessa loves Emmy’s easy affection and blatant admiration._ _

__“You’re so pretty,” Emmy smiles, putting down her book on the coffee table._ _

__“I’m so sweaty,” Tessa says, walking over to drop a quick kiss to Emmy’s cheek before heading to shower._ _

__“The two aren’t mutually exclusive,” Emmy says, grabbing her hand and pulling her in for a proper kiss. Her other hand falls to Tessa’s hip and she rubs little circles with her thumb on the skin just above the waistband of Tessa leggings._ _

__Emmy hums happily when Tessa pulls away just slightly. “I’m gross,” Tessa says, when Emmy runs her hand across her stomach._ _

__“Nope,” Emmy says, exploring the ridges of Tessa’s abs with her fingers, undeterred by a little sweat. “Definitely not even a little gross. Very sexy.”_ _

__“Yeah?” Tessa asks, raising an eyebrow, it’s mostly teasing but there’s always that little bit of doubt in her that she’s never been able to shake. That part that needs the reassurance, that needs to hear she’s beautiful and amazing and all these things. Tessa leans in to kiss Emmy feeling her responding yeah against her lips._ _

__Emmy’s hand migrates from Tessa’s hip around to her ass, squeezing it and then falling back on the couch, pulling Tessa down with her, wrapping one of her legs around Tessa’s upper thigh. Tessa laughs, and controls her movement as she falls onto the couch over Emmy. “Is this why you aren’t wearing pants?” she chuckles, running her fingers up the inside of Emmy’s thigh, smiling against the soft skin of her neck when she feels Emmy’s whole body shiver beneath her._ _

__Emmy laughs, her body shaking with it. “You caught me,” she says, her smile so brilliant and beautiful, before she pulls Tessa down for another kiss, deep and needy._ _

__Emmy has just worked off her own t-shirt and has her fingers hooked under the band of Tessa’s sports bra when Tessa’s phone rings. It buzzes and shuffles along the surface of the coffee table where she’d left it to play her workout place list. Groaning Tessa pulls herself away just enough to tilt her head back to look at the screen._ _

__“It’s Scott?” she says, hearing the question in her own voice. As if she’s asking Emmy to confirm. She loves Scott. Scott is her best friend. Scott knows her better than almost anyone else, and vice versa. But their off ice friendship is still baffling to most. Despite spending more time together during their comeback and on this last leg of tours as friends, unscheduled calls are still, for the most part, outside of the realm of their relationship—though that’s changing now that they are inching closer to true retirement._ _

__“Scott doesn’t call you,” Emmy says, putting a voice to Tessa’s thoughts. “Not unless you’re working on something.”_ _

__Tessa nods, brow furrowed. “No. We don’t have a call until next week.”_ _

__“You should get it,” Emmy says, continuing when Tessa makes no move to grab it, she really doesn’t want to stop what they were doing. “Tess… Scott doesn’t call you… and he’s calling you, at 11 am on a Saturday.”_ _

___Shit_. She groans and rolls off Emmy. “Fuck,” this better be about something important. She answers just before it goes to voicemail. “Scott?” she barely stops herself from saying a snippy, _what do want?__ _

__“Tess?” he drags out. “Is this a bad time?” She’s about to let him know it is most definitely a bad time, to tell him bluntly that she has her mostly naked girlfriend on her couch, but something in his voice gives her pause. Before she has a chance to respond he’s blurting out, “I fucked up. I think I fucked things up with Kacey and I don’t know how to fix it.” He sounds destroyed and her heart cracks a bit for him, sharing in his pain like she’s always done._ _

__Dammit. She sighs and rubs at her temples. She’s not sure she’s really equipped for this, just managing to keep her own relationship functioning. “What happened?”_ _

__Emmy doesn’t miss the touches of sympathy in her voice and raises an eyebrow and cocks her head to the side in question. _I think Kacey dumped him_ , Tess mouths, waiting for Scott to explain. Emmy frowns in response. _ _

__“I don’t think we’re on the same page. I don’t know if she wants the same things,” she can hear the defeated shrug in his voice._ _

__It doesn’t make sense. “I thought things were going really well now?” He seemed so happy with it all last time they talked. They’d all actually gone out for dinner, her and Emmy, Scott and Kacey—another thing to add to the list of stuff they never did before—and it had been great. Maybe it was a little weird at first, but mostly because Tessa had been worried about being in public on date… a double date, but they’d had fun. She’s sure, of course, anyone who may have seen them could have assumed Scott was her date or that they were all having dinner as friends, but she was still on edge for the first forty minutes in a way she really didn’t like. It took both Emmy and Scott telling her to relax to finally settle into what ended up being a really, really good dinner._ _

__“It was. I thought it was anyways. It felt like it was. But then… we had a fight because she felt like I was pushing things, but dammit I’ve been trying to take it slow and spend time just being... but it’s been over a year now and almost six months since the Olympics I don’t want to keep waiting.”_ _

__And there it is. She closes her eyes for a second, to think of what to say. She feels for him, deeply, but also she thinks she gets exactly where Kacey would be coming from. “Did you tell her that you didn’t want to wait?” Her heart sinks. “Did you propose?”_ _

__“I didn’t!” he almost yells in her ear through the speaker. “I mean I may have said I didn’t want to wait anymore, yeah… and I may have started looking at rings. But I didn’t propose yet. I just wanted to talk about it. Charlie is going to have another baby, and I don’t know… it got me wanting to get there too.”_ _

__“Life isn’t a competition with your brothers,” Tessa says, trying to keep her tone compassionate but also wanting to shake him just a bit. “How many Olympic golds do they have? You’re allowed to take time to just be, Scott.” She knows family is something he’s always wanted, knows that they’ve both sacrificed a lot for their goals and he feels like he needs a new goal now and she has no doubt he’ll be an amazing dad. She also doesn’t think he’s ready for that yet, not that it’s really her place._ _

__“Kacey told me I needed to take some time too, but I know what I want. God, Tess I love that girl. She’s amazing. And I want to marry her and have a family. But she doesn’t want that. She said she wasn’t there yet and if I won’t wait she’s not the one for me and walked out the door.”_ _

__“I’m so sorry Scott,” Tessa sighs again, she can picture so clearly the way his whole face will have fallen, that combined look of both confusion and devastation. “Maybe she’s right though. What do you want more? Kacey? Or a family right now?”_ _

__Emmy who has been patiently sitting on the couch, listening but not interfering, throws on her shirt and tilts her head knowingly and says, “I’m going to go put on pants and then coffee.”_ _

__Tessa nods at her and bites her lip, if they’re already changing the whole nature of their friendship she might as well offer him proper comfort. “Em is going to start coffee and I think she’s using leftover salmon to make a pasta salad for lunch. Why don’t you come over?”_ _

__“Oh shit,” he says. “No, Tess you have Em with you I don’t want to intrude on your time. I’m so sorry. I don’t even know why I called you -- it isn’t what we do. I just… I don’t know I picked up my phone and next thing I know you’re answering. I just, I needed someone to talk to, I guess, who gets me.”_ _

__“Scott,” she says his name clearly, this is important, this change in their friendship. “It’s okay. I’m glad you called me. I want to be there for you, however you need,” she pauses for a second listening to the sounds of Emmy upstairs getting dressed. “God knows you’ve helped me so much the past few months with Em, and I am so grateful for that. For you. This is the least I can do, just come over… Emmy is already getting dressed so, it’s fine.”_ _

__**_ _

__Tessa headed for the shower as soon as she got off the phone with Scott, letting Emmy make up a fresh pot of coffee in the french press and get started on lunch. Emmy kissed her on the landing on her way down, now clad in a pair of cut off jean shorts, fraying at the hems and artfully distressed--they’re her favourites despite the fact that she continually tries to put her phone in the back pocket only to have it fall right out the large tear. Tessa tried to form the words to apologize that they got interrupted by Scott’s crisis but Emmy shook her head and said it was fine before Tessa could even get out the words._ _

__Tessa has only just gotten out of the shower and thrown on a skirt when the bell rings letting her know that Scott has arrived. She’s about to throw on the first top she finds when she hears Emmy walking to answer the door and decides not to rush. Putting on her favourite crop top and pulling her hair into a bun while heading to the landing. She can hear Emmy answering the door and smiles at the comfort Emmy clearly feels in her home and with Scott._ _

__“Hey you. Tess just got out of the shower. She’ll be right down,” she can hear Emmy’s voice drift up the stairs, soft and sweet like honey, but not thick or forced. There is a note of genuine concern and care. Because she’s Emmy and that’s just who she is. “Rough day, eh?”_ _

__“Try week,” Scott huffs out a forced laugh followed by a long pause. “Thanks E,” he says and Tessa guesses Emmy must have wrapped him in a hug, intuiting it’s what he needed. “I’m sorry… to bust in on your time with T.”_ _

__“It’s okay,” Emmy says and Tessa knows she means it. She really doesn’t mind at all. “You need your friend, I get that. And it’s good that she knows you need her sometimes too, she likes feeling needed.”_ _

__“Always,” he says. “I’ll always need Tess in my life.”_ _

__Tessa takes a deep breath, not realizing how much she needed to hear that before she did. She knows they’ve always been there for each other, despite the ups and downs but especially lately, this post Olympics, she’s felt like she’s needed him so much more than he’s ever needed her. She takes the stairs slowly, she doesn’t really mean to eavesdrop, but she wants to give them a moment. Emmy is always so good with stuff like this, putting people at ease and though she knows that she knows Scott best, it’s nice to see how well her girlfriend falls into this roll of helper. She wants to hear the words she has to offer, a different point of view from what Tessa might have._ _

__“I’m sorry about Kacey,” Emmy says. “But maybe I can offer some perspective?”_ _

__There’s a pause and Tessa can only assume Scott is nodding. She slows her decent even further._ _

__“I don’t know what your relationship with Kacey is like,” she pauses and Tessa can hear the smirk in her voice, how she’d be playfully lifting her eyebrows to lighten the mood. “And I don’t want the details,” she hears Scott laugh, it’s not his big laugh but it’s there and he mumbles something she can’t quite hear before Emmy continues. “But I do know what it’s like to be the girlfriend of one of Canada’s Olympic sweethearts. And I know Tess and I have things you guys won’t have to deal with and vice versa, but I also know this: you’ve been seeing each other for just over a year, yeah? But it wasn’t serious until after the Olympics and since then you’ve been away touring for half that time and you’ve only really just got back and even though yeah you feel like you’re wrapped up in this little domestic bubble and it’s really good… great even… it isn’t the same and it doesn’t quite make up for those missing months. I mean don’t get me wrong the time away can strengthen your relationship in different ways… but you can’t forget that time away. You need some time to build that foundation together.”_ _

__Scott doesn’t respond, at least not that she can hear, she thinks he’s probably nodding along. Which is significant that he hasn’t interjected because Tessa knows it means he’s taking everything in, storing the information and really absorbing it. She is too. She forgets sometimes, how hard it must be for Em and for Kacey -- these teeter totter periods of all or nothing. It’s difficult for Tessa too, but for Scott, this _is_ his normal. He might not fully realize how hard it might be to have a partner who is so absent for long stretches and then all in when they’re home. _ _

__“Scott, you’re such a great guy, but I know if I were Kacey,” Emmy starts again, her voice softer now as she sighs. She’s trying to be so, so gentle with her words. “I might be a little wary too. You’ve never had the day-in-day out just normal everyday relationship shit for months on end, let alone years. Forever is a lot to ask, right now. Especially when everything is still buzzing from the Olympics and you haven’t had a real chance to decompress yet.”_ _

__Emmy is right, Tessa knows this. It still tugs at her heart and she hopes Emmy doesn’t feel the same wariness in their relationship. She settles her anxiety with a breath and decides to set it aside for later. Right now, she’s here for Scott. And she knows, true or not, this is something that might be as much truth as Scott can handle, so she quickly makes her way into the foyer just as Emmy is finishing. Tessa can tell he has taken this information in but is looking a bit weary and defeated by it. Like the reality of what his relationship with Kacey has really been like is just dawning on him._ _

__“But,” Tessa says, continuing Emmy’s points but ready to offer some reassurance. “You can do it. You know how to deal with everything that comes your way everyday for months at a time. You’ve done that with me and skating. You can do it Scott, you just need to show Kacey you can, if that’s what you want.”_ _

__Scott’s eyes are wide and he’s looking between her and Emmy, trying to process what he’s hearing and she can tell he’s a little overwhelmed. “And what if I do that, what if I can prove I’d be all in everyday no matter what, and she still doesn’t want what I want?” He runs his hand through his hair and sighs deeply. “Or what if she doesn’t want to let me try anymore? I told her I was done waiting.”_ _

__Tessa heaves out her own sigh and tugs him into her arms. She doesn’t know what she’d do if she messed things up with Emmy. She doesn’t think she’d be holding it together as well as Scott seems to be. “Let’s go into the kitchen and have some coffee and lunch.”_ _

__**_ _

__Hours after Scott’s gone home—she doesn’t know if anything they had to say actually helped him, but he seemed to leave in better spirits—she and Emmy are both curled on opposite ends of the couch reading their books, decompressing from the day. It’s nice being able to spend time with her in comfortable silence, occupying the same space but doing their own things. It took a little bit for them to get here. At the beginning, because their time together was always so short, Tessa felt like she had to spend every moment with Emmy, engaging with her whether it be talking, having sex or just cuddling and watching a movie. Now, they spend their time together and cherish every moment of it, but know and accept when they each need space or quiet time--even when it’s like this, quiet time apart but together in the same room._ _

__Except tonight she’s struggling to concentrate on the words on the page, they dance around in her head as she reads them, not making sense, forcing her to read and reread the same sentences over and over. All afternoon she’s had this feeling of unease about what Emmy said to Scott, about being wary and she can’t help but worry that Emmy is having some doubts about their relationship, even though everything feels perfect right now._ _

__“Em,” she says, voice soft, just loud enough to rouse Emmy from the world of her book but not loud enough to startle her._ _

__Emmy looks up at her, marking her place in her book with the scrap of paper Tessa had long ago written her a little note on that she’s been using as a bookmark, and putting the book down next to her on the couch. She’s giving Tessa her full attention. “What’s up babe?”_ _

__Tessa takes a measured breath before starting. “What you said to Scott before, about if you were Kacey… is that something that worries you in our relationship?”_ _

__Emmy is shaking her head before she even says anything, scooching past the bend in the sectional to sit next to Tessa. “No. No. Not with you, because I know you feel the same when we’re apart. I worry about different things, but not that. I think we’ve figured that part out, the balance.”_ _

__Tessa swallows, she’s relieved and anxious in turn. But they talk about these things. They have to for this to work, especially because Tessa knows she and Scott have their own fall tour to get through soon—another long stretch of time apart and she doesn’t want anything to fester. “What does have you worried?” she asks, turning her body completely to face Emmy._ _

__Emmy just shakes her head and does a little shoulder shrug like what she’s about to say isn’t a big deal at all. “You know the secrecy and having to be so careful with everything I do just in case… but it’s nothing I haven’t already made my peace with, right from the start.”_ _

__Her heart sinks, falling heavily from her chest into her stomach. She knows, of course, that this part of their relationship has been hard on Emmy, on her too. Emmy doesn’t like to hide who she is, even if she isn’t one to necessarily broadcast her sexuality or relationships she’s never worried herself over either. She’s never anything but genuine and open and hiding something so important must be killing her. Emmy’s had to make a lot of sacrifices for her, for their relationship, but she’s done so really without any complaint. Emmy has taken everything in stride, ever since the Olympics, entirely understanding and supportive of why. But understanding and liking are different things all together. Clearly it’s really been bothering her if she’s bringing it up at all._ _

__She can’t help the guilt that bubbles up inside her. “Em, dammit. I’m sorry. I’m sorry you have to do that for me… clearly you haven’t made your peace with it though. Not really. Not if you’re saying that.”_ _

__They’ve never really talked about this part. Not bluntly. It’s always been this unspoken understanding that Tessa’s life right now is very much public, especially after the Olympics, and this relationship is very private and deserves to be protected. There is also the added complication that she isn’t out publicly, something Emmy has told her she understands, would even probably feel the same if it were her. And even if she were ready personally for that kind of revelation, she doesn’t think now is the time for that. She and Scott are still struggling to get people to look past their _chemistry_ and understand all the hard work they put into their career, coming out now would just make it a spectacle. She doesn’t want that. For her, for Scott, for Emmy especially. And she knows Emmy knows and gets this and hasn’t tried to push her in another direction. But maybe she has been overly worried about it. _ _

__“Tess,” Emmy sighs, it’s heavy, and she moves even closer to take Tessa’s hand in hers. “I shouldn’t have said it at all. Because I understand and I always have and it… it’s isn’t enough to stop me from wanting to be with you. It’s not like I feel like I’m your dirty little secret. I don’t want you feeling bad about it, because I know this is how things have to be right now.”_ _

__“But you do kind of feel like that sometimes, don’t you?” Emmy takes a deep breath and shrugs her shoulders again. “Em, dammit. Don’t do that. Don’t tell me things are fine because you don’t want me to feel bad. You can’t do that.” She thinks of that moment earlier in the summer, seeing Emmy over FaceTime absolutely broken in a way she’d never seen her before and having no idea she had been feeling so deeply. She doesn’t want that to happen again. Emmy is usually very upfront with her feelings unless she thinks it’s something that could make Tessa feel bad or guilty then she holds it close to herself. “You have to tell me.”_ _

__Emmy closes her eyes before starting, keeping her voice level. Tessa knows neither of them want this to turn into an argument. “What do you want me to tell you Tess? That there’s a difference between keeping something that’s private, private and actively hiding it?”_ _

__Tessa squeezes Emmy’s hand, and takes a deep breath in, with a long slow exhale. “I’m trying to protect you… protect this,” she gestures between them. The _and myself_ goes unspoken but the words still hang heavily in the air, thick and humid. _ _

__“I know,” Emmy leans her head on the back on the couch. “I know you want that. But Tessa… I know things got crazy after the Olympics I get it but you’re so worried about everything all the time. About how things might look.”_ _

__Tessa shakes her head, she knows she’s been a bit worried, maybe a bit more so lately—but she’s been worried about everything. “I’m not hiding.”_ _

__“Tess, we hardly ever go out anywhere… which is fine, but for fuck sakes you spent fifteen minutes at dinner with Scott and Kacey debating if it would make it look more like we were together if you sat across from me or beside me… then whether or not people who might see would think you’re with Scott if you were across from him.”_ _

__She did do that. But she was so worried about everything that night. They’d just gotten back from tour and done an entire day of press to talk about their tour and answered questions about the future (and she really doesn’t know what her future holds) and of course there were always the comments about her and Scott’s relationship, even six months of denials later. “I’m sorry.”_ _

__“Tess, it isn’t your fault… it’s just you need to know you can have dinner with the people you love without worrying yourself sick about what people will think about it. It’s your life,” she pauses, biting at her lip. “Our life.” There’s a certain note of finality to the way she says _our life_ that makes Tessa’s heart pick up in her chest. “It would be nice not to have to overthink every detail, like ‘oh can I post that cute photo from The Bag Lady the other day? Or that awesome dance poster I found, because then the internet would know I’m here in London and then would know I’m here because of you and well that might be gay’.” _ _

__She has to snort at that, but she contains it quickly, because she can hear the latent emotion in Emmy’s voice, just the tiniest touches of frustration and hurt and maybe a little defeat. “You can though. I trust your judgment and I never want to stop you from being yourself… I’m sorry. Sometimes I feel like I will say or do the wrong thing and everything will come crashing in on me,” but Emmy, she is worth more than anything that anyone could think of her, and though she isn’t ready for anything public yet—still wants to protect what they have—she doesn’t want to push Emmy away with her anxiety. “But it isn’t fair to either of us or this relationship to be so secretive about everything. You should post those pictures it’ll be a good thing.”_ _

__“Tess,” Emmy sounds hesitant. “I don’t want to feel like I’m forcing this on you. I’m fine. It isn’t like I used my Instagram or Twitter a lot before now anyway…”_ _

__“It’s probably a good time to start though,” Tessa says. “Besides, I might be biased but that photo of you staring at your breakfast longingly is cute and deserves to be seen.”_ _

__Emmy laughs. “It was so good, is it okay to be in love with French toast?”_ _

__Tessa smiles. “And maybe you could take a picture of me reading? I’ll put it up asking for book recommendations.” If Emmy posts she’s in London and Tessa posts something soon after she knows some people will connect the dots that Emmy is her photographer, but maybe that isn’t a bad thing. She’s thinking about it now, it’s like a trail of breadcrumbs, working her way up to something bigger. Besides she thinks she owes this to Emmy and to herself. Being a bit more open._ _

__Emmy moves in closer to her, cuddling against her arm, Tessa kisses the top of her head. “Okay,” Emmy says. “I think that’s a good idea.”_ _

__**_ _

__“So,” Scott says, crackly through her phone, she can hear him clicking away at something on his laptop, probably opening the documents she sent him earlier. “I got everything you sent over from the production company and the notes on the buses and the booking confirmation,” he pauses, with a few more clicks. “And I’ll start going over the song lists soon, and we can conference in Marie and Emmy...who are both still good to do the choreography right?”_ _

__“Hmm,” Tessa hums half listening while she is looking through her own emails and notes, listing out in her head what she and Scott need to get accomplished with this phone call. They haven’t talked since Scott had called her out of the blue last week. She still thinks they won’t talk often on the phone, preferring person to person conversations, but her schedule has been so busy, that and them both trying to spend the time they have free with family and significant others hasn’t left much of a choice in terms of nailing down the details of their upcoming tour._ _

__“Em,” he says. “You haven’t said much about it recently, but she still has time to choreograph right?”_ _

__“Yes,” Tessa says, nodding even though he can’t see. “Yeah. She’s excited, she’s already looked over the song list I sent you and started coming up with ideas, but…” she lets her voice trail off._ _

__“But what?” Scott asks, worry suddenly laced through his voice as it wavers slightly and picks up in tempo. “Everything alright? With you two right? I thought things were going really well?”_ _

__“They are,” she rushes. “So well, so damn well I feel like I’m dreaming half the time. She’s the best, seriously you have no idea. Other than finding her missing glasses in the couch cushions...after I sat on them, I think she’s pretty much perfect.”_ _

__Scott laughs, “Could happen to anyone. So what’s the but? There’s something going on Virtch.”_ _

__She sighs, rearranging the small vase of pink and white daisies on her kitchen island, running her finger along the soft petals. “She, just...it’s nothing for you to worry about,” she pauses. “She’s willing to do whatever I’m comfortable with that’s what she said, of course, because she’s wonderful. But I think she’s, she’s going to have a really hard time working and being herself with the rest of the cast...working with me and lying. Pretending we aren’t together.”_ _

__“That’s a really hard thing to ask of her Tess,” he sighs. “You know that, right? It’s a lot to ask of her, to keep this a secret. Besides Tess, they’re our friends and teammates, kiddo, they’ll be happy for you.”_ _

__“Of course I do!” she puts her head in her hands, rubbing at her temples, looking up towards the door. Emmy is still staying with her, until she needs to be back in Montreal next week, she just went out to meet with an old friend from York who’s working at Western now._ _

__“So what are you going to do?”_ _

__She’s been thinking about it for the last few weeks now but her talk with Emmy really solidified things. Thinking about telling the cast about Emmy, because Scott is right. She knows that it isn’t fair to Emmy, as willing as she is to take things at whatever pace Tessa needs, it can’t be easy for her. She’s such an open, affectionate person and Tessa is already asking so much of her in having to publicly hide their relationship. She’s already had to change her life so much for Tessa. Not only in having to deal with a long distance relationship, but in being in a relationship with someone in the public eye who isn’t out, having to step back from social media and be constantly cognizant of what she says and posts publicly, dealing with fans of Tessa and Scott as a couple constantly asking her if her girlfriend is fucking someone else and not being able to say anything about it. Emmy has the patience of a saint, and Tessa is so lucky and grateful that Emmy hasn’t given up yet._ _

__“I’m going to come out,” she says, and she immediately hears him gasp. “Just to the cast,” she adds quickly. “For now.”_ _

__“Yes! Tess, I’m so happy for you!” Scott’s nearly shouting through the phone and she has to hold it away from her ear, smiling and chuckling under her breath at his enthusiasm. It soothes something in her. “Kiddo, that’s huge. It’ll be great though, you’ll see, they all love you. And I’ll be there to help however you need.”_ _

__She really hopes he’s right._ _

__**_ _

__It isn't like when she first came out. When she was barely twenty-four and feeling like she didn’t know up from down anymore, when the weight of it was crushing her chest, making it hard to breathe. When she came out to her family and closest friends not just because she needed them to know who she was, but because she couldn’t bear being the only one who knew anymore. She needed the reassurance of the people who she loved that it would be okay, to help her figure the rest out, so she didn’t have to be alone in this._ _

__Tessa adjusts her hold on Scott’s hand as they skate around. He squeezes her hand and simes at her. This time is different because he has him, entirely supportive of her, holding her hand, there for her however she needs. And she has Emmy. Her reason for doing this. They’ve been in Montreal for two weeks now, workshopping choreography with Emmy and her friend Sam—who they’ve worked with on occasion and who works with other Gadbois skaters—then transferring it on ice with Marie-France. It’s been a fun process, but will take a lot of figuring out once the rest of the cast arrive and they can put the group numbers together._ _

__Tessa listens to the sounds of their blades carving through the ice in perfect synchronization, even when just casually skating in a circuit. Emmy is over by the boards with Marie deep in conversation, switching fluidly between French and English, gesturing wildly as they try to visualize the group numbers before the rest of the cast arrives on the ice in just a few minutes._ _

__“So kiddo,” Scott says, squeezing her hand. “Today?”_ _

__“Today,” she nods, gripping his hand tightly, steadying herself with the solid feel of it in hers. Today she comes out to the rest of the cast._ _

__Back then, it had taken her six months after Scott had suggested that maybe she was gay before she finally admitted to him that he was right. Six months of painful self reflecting, of dismantling everything she knew about herself and piecing it back together with this new lense. And so much started to make sense. Clicked. It was like her whole life she’d been this puzzle and for the first time she finally had the box, the original picture to reference and could put all the pieces together in the right places._ _

__She doesn’t like to think about it now, how long she denied it for. How she’d thought about kissing Scott again and pretending she felt what she thought she should for him, what he felt for her. She knew she loved him in so many ways and she thought, maybe, if she pretended long enough she could love him like that too, she could make herself. That it would be easier. She thought he was who she was supposed to love, who everyone thought she should be with. But she knew that wasn’t fair to either of them and she’s very glad now she never tried to do that, that she accepted herself enough to know that would hurt her and him. That, she thinks, would have ripped them apart._ _

__As it was she spent that whole season a complete mess, inside her head at least and she took all that confusion and anger—anger at herself, at the world, at Scott for flipping her world upside down—and channeled it into her character on ice. She felt like she wasn’t in control of her life, or the person she was, but on ice, in character she had power, she had control. That girl was strong. She wasn’t._ _

__She told Scott he was right after they’d lost worlds on home ice. Because she felt like they had no control over the outcome of their season and she needed to have control over this one thing. He’d kissed her temple and told her he loved her no matter what. She wanted that to be true, she needed him, but even though somehow he’d known even when she had refused to see it, knew her better than she knew herself, he took a little while to really come around and to show her he meant his words. He’d said he loved her no matter what, but in that moment she felt him pulling away from her, like he didn’t know her at all anymore._ _

__She knows now it was because he was grappling with his own feelings, his feelings for her, afraid of how this would change the dynamic of their partnership and also afraid for her, for how confused and scared she had been. He didn’t know how to deal with her crisis of sexuality, he didn’t know how to help her. He tried to move on, to ignore it all by jumping quickly into a relationship and their partnership suffered, they weren’t on the same page, it was like he didn’t know how to touch her, how to interact with her, he didn’t trust her when she said Marina wasn’t going to help them win and she felt like that was entirely her fault. She felt like she’d ruined them._ _

__And it was that, as they limped their way into the Grand Prix circuit in their second Olympic season, lying through their teeth on the stupid TV show they’d agreed to do, that pushed Tessa to come out the first time—to family. Because she felt like she had to explain to those who loved them and had invested so much in their success why it was all falling apart. It probably wasn’t the best reason to admit aloud what she wasn’t quite ready to, but for the most part, she was supported by her family and by his._ _

__Everyone was a bit surprised by her revelation. Everyone except Jordan who’d just said, “Of course you are Sam,” like she’d known all along. Her mom had been a bit wide-eyed but hugged her and said, “Thank you for telling us. I know that can’t have been easy,” followed by the assurance that she loved her, always. Alma said much of the same, how proud she was of Tessa for sharing with them, even through tears, how she’d always felt like a second mom to Tessa and this would not change that. Her dad on the other hand, he told her she was making a mistake, that she was just confused, not a lesbian._ _

__This isn’t like that at all. She isn’t twenty-four and she isn’t scared of who she is anymore, she loves herself, knows exactly who she is and has a partner who she loves, who loves her and she and Scott have honestly never felt closer than the past three or so years—her dad’s lack of support, finding out that he wouldn’t go support them in Sochi had been the push Scott needed to realize that this really wasn’t about him and how much Tessa truly needed him supporting her. This isn’t the same. She is sharing a part of herself with friends, colleagues, teammates, people she’s known for years. She has to keep reminding herself of this, until she’s convinced herself that it really isn’t a big deal. It will be okay._ _

__Emmy smiles at her from next to Marie and blows a sweet little kiss. It sets Tessa at ease a bit, reminds her why this is important, why she needs to find the courage to say what she needs to say to her friends. It isn’t like she hasn’t told anyone since 2013. She’d told a few of her oldest and closest friends over the course of a few years. And a little over three years ago she told Marie and Patch, when they were discussing taking her and Scott on as a team. She felt it was important they understood everything she and Scott has gone through in the lead up to Sochi. They felt it was important their coaches knew all there was to know about them and the truth behind their dynamic. It wasn't long after that Marie suggested Emmy to her as as a choreographer and one day she really does need to thank her for bringing them back together._ _

__She also told JF and the other integral members of their team, those invested heavily in her and Scott’s mental health, in a team meeting. Emmy wasn’t part of those team meetings and she realizes she never directly told Emmy; she’d implied, made some heavy handed hints, but she never said the words. It wasn’t ever due to lack of trust, she trusted her almost immediately. But she suspects it was an unconscious effort not to get hurt—if Emmy didn’t know she was gay she couldn’t reject her. The thought, she knows now was silly, besides Emmy told her she figured it out right away, she had a _feeling_ she said—“also, the entire first class you wouldn’t stop staring at me, I had to try hard not to do the same”. She wonders if she had just directly said to her _I’m gay_ if Emmy would have laughed and said _yeah me too_. Would that have saved them two years of back and forth? Would she have recognized flirting for what it was? It doesn’t matter now, and she realizes that knowing for the full two and a bit years that the attraction was mutual but still being aware of her Olympic goal would have been agonizing._ _

__Emmy is skating up to her and Scott, much more confident on the ice than when she first began working with them. She’s got a giant knit scarf wrapped tightly around her neck up to her chin, but her incandescent smile peeks over the top, as she skates backwards trying to film them with her phone. She’s been helping promote their tour on her Instagram—though needed help figuring out posting video stories sequentially, couldn’t figure out why they kept cutting a few seconds in, it was cute. Tessa waves to the camera and laughs when Emmy blows her a kiss from behind the lens, then an exaggerated one in Scott’s direction._ _

__Once Emmy’s tucked her phone back into the pocket of her sweater, Scott squeezes Tessa’s hand twice before letting go, giving her a reassuring smile and then Emmy a quick hug before skating off toward Marie._ _

__Tessa skates up to Emmy and takes her hand. Emmy raises her eyebrows in surprise but doesn’t move away, just adjusts her hand in Tessa’s. Marie knows they are together, but the rest of the skaters, who are on their way, do not so Tessa understands her look of questioning. Tessa just shrugs in response, gripping her hand tighter and prompting Emmy to skate a lap with her._ _

__Skating with Emmy’s hand in hers doesn’t feel at all like Scott’s. Scott’s hand in hers on the ice is grounding, comforting. It feels like being back in her childhood home, reminds her of all their years together. It’s like the alphabet or riding a bike, something she’s known for what feels like forever but doesn’t remember learning. Skating has always meant holding Scott’s hand. Holding Emmy’s hand is different, first her hand is smaller, it doesn’t engulf hers protectively like Scott’s, but fits comfortably inside her own, fingers intertwined, and it’s warm and comforting in different ways. Holding Emmy’s hand on the ice feels a little weird but also new and exciting and full of promise._ _

__They skate around the rink at a slow steady pace and after a minute or so Emmy falls into rhythm with her. Tessa rubs her thumb along the back of Emmy’s hand._ _

__Tessa breathes in for a long beat and then slowly exhales. “So I was thinking, maybe when everyone else gets here, before we start, I could introduce you as my girlfriend? Before I introduce you as the tour choreographer.”_ _

__Emmy stops in her tracks, pulling Tessa back in towards her. Her eyes are wide, flitting all over Tessa’s face. “Really?” There’s an excited trepidation to her voice, Tessa can see the small smile._ _

__She nods, squeezing Emmy’s hand. “Yes. I’ve been thinking about it for a while, if you’re okay with it? They’re good people, all of them and you’ve met most of them at the Olympics and I think it’s time...”_ _

__Emmy pulls her into a hug, wrapping her arms around Tessa so tightly she almost loses her footing. “I love you,” she says. “Thank you. You’re sure you’re ready?”_ _

__Tessa squeezes her tighter, holds her close and feels at peace, feels a flood of love for this woman in her arms, and why wouldn’t she want to share that? Even if earlier today she wasn’t sure she was ready, right now she knows she is. Besides, she knows that eventually she will have to come out publicly, she can’t hide forever, sooner or later people will find out and she’d rather it be on her terms and she doesn’t intend to do that to Emmy, make her hide forever. Widening the group of people who know, it’s a step in that direction. And even if she isn’t particularly close to all the skaters, she respects them, she trusts them and she considers them her friends._ _

__“Love you, baby,” she whispers into Emmy’s hair as she holds her, swaying back and forth on her skates. “I’m definitely ready.”_ _

__**_ _

__Everyone is on the ice. Tessa contemplated waiting until they all go out to eat together later, the whole cast, to celebrate the first official day of rehearsal, but she wants to start off completely open, and she thinks if she waits it will just become more difficult. And there is something she’s always found comforting about being on the ice, even in a crowd. Scott is on one side of her and Emmy is on the other and she has skates on her feet. Marie just to the right of Emmy, while the rest of the cast wait in front of them for instruction. It’s the best time and she knows it._ _

__Scott is talking, but she can’t hear what he’s saying over the sound of her own heart beating rapidly in her ears. She’s skating in nervous little circles while she waits for her turn to thank everyone for joining them on this tour, and saying what she has to say. She looks over at Emmy next to her, who looks like she’s itching to hold her hand, to give her hand a reassuring squeeze. Tessa smiles at her and Emmy smiles back and that’s enough._ _

__“I’m going to shut up now,” Scott says, skating right up to Tessa, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Virtch is better with words so I’ll let her say something, she’ll probably say everything I just said is wrong...then we can just get to work.”_ _

__She shakes her head and laughs at him, then turns to their friends and teammates. “I feel weird standing in front of all of you as if I’m going to make a speech,” she says, still shaking her head. “But Scott and I wanted to say thank you. We’re so grateful you were willing to help us make a go at this, to try and see if we can do all those things we’ve always thought would make a great show.” She pauses for a minute, thinking over her words. “We know you all make an amazing cast, and if we’re going to spend two months on the road with a group of people hoping this works, we’re glad it’s you guys.”_ _

__She looks around at the group, then back to Emmy who is smiling patiently. Scott squeezes her shoulder, a silent you got this, kiddo._ _

__She swallows, and skates over to Emmy, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “I know a lot of you have met her briefly before, but I wanted to introduce you all properly to my girlfriend, Emmy,” she keeps herself talking, not letting herself look up at anyone’s faces, yet. “We somehow convinced her to help Marie-France with choreography for the whole tour, so you’ll be spending a lot of time with her the next two weeks.”_ _

__Emmy does a little wave, looking around at the cast. Tessa finally looks up with her, expecting to see surprise, maybe confusion, but mostly all she sees are smiles. Elvis looks like he’s processing, but for the most part everyone else is nodding along. No one appears shocked or confused as they wait for her to continue speaking._ _

__“Um, that’s really all I had to say,” she says eventually. “Should we start? I’ll hand over the reins to Emmy, she’s great and I might be biased but I’m sure you’ll love her. And Marie, too!” she rushes to add on the end, and then takes a deep breath to stop herself from continuing to babble._ _

__Emmy wraps her arm around Tessa’s waist and gives a little squeeze, it’s her thank you and I’m proud of you. There is some chatter amongst the group and Tessa tries to pay attention, to gauge her friend’s reaction. But mostly all she sees are smiling faces, ready to get to work. Then Eric is skating up to her, sporting one of the biggest smiles she’s seen on him._ _

__“I’m going to borrow your girlfriend,” he says to Emmy, before wrapping Tessa in his arms, a hug so big she’s lifted from the ice and he skates around with her in his arms, spinning around with her. “I’m happy for you Tess, and proud, kid.”_ _

__“Thanks,” she says as he puts her back on her feet. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before...that—I wanted to, I just wasn’t really sure how.”_ _

__“Tess,” he shakes his head. “It’s okay, I get it. You share when you’re comfortable. But I’m always here if you need someone to talk to.”_ _

__“Thank you,” she says again, then Andrew is hugging her and Chiddy, who tells her she seems happier than he’s seen her in a long time. And both Kaitlyn and Meagan quickly give their own hugs. Then there’s Elvis, who still looks like he’s processing what’s happening but is excited nonetheless._ _

__“I’m sorry,” he says hugging her. “I feel like I missed something. I didn’t realize you were gay,” he smiles a bit sheepishly, shrugging his shoulders. “She seems lovely, I’m excited to work with her for the next few weeks and I’m so happy for you sweetheart.”_ _

__“Oh,” Tessa says, wrapping her arms around him. “No, no need to be sorry. I’ve only really come out to Scott and my family. And now all of you.”_ _

__Kaetlyn is standing a bit off to the side looking around at everyone else and then at Tessa. Tessa wouldn’t have guessed her to be unsupportive, but she seems unsure for a moment and Tessa’s heart drops. But as soon as they make eye contact Kaetlyn laughs and shrugs, skating over to her, wrapping her in a hug just as everyone else had done. But when she pulls back she’s shaking her head and then looking around before looking back at Tessa._ _

__“I didn’t know this was news,” she laughs. “I thought we all knew you were dating Emmy. After meeting her at the Olympics… I just assumed and when we were touring in Japan and Scott told me you were seeing someone and how you talked about her…” Kaetlyn trails off awkwardly, looking around at everyone else for some kind of confirmation. “I just didn’t realize it was news. But I’m glad you’re comfortable enough to tell us anyway.”_ _

__Wide-eyed Tessa looks at everyone, too. There are a lot of shrugs in her direction and Patrick is glaring at Kaetlyn, shaking his head like she just revealed a secret._ _

__“Did...did you guys know?” she asks, frantically looking between everyone, filled with a mix of panic and relief._ _

__“We didn’t really _know_. A lot of us kind of guessed,” Patrick says, apology laced through his words. “But, uh, didn’t want to say anything if you didn’t want us to know, and if on the slim chance we were all reading things wrong.” _ _

__Kaetlyn is laughing and hugging her again. “I was sure! And I really didn’t know it was something we weren’t meant to know. I’m so happy you’re happy.”_ _

__“How?” Tessa asks, looking now to Scott, silently asking him if she’d been that obvious._ _

__“I had no idea they knew!” Scott says holding his hands up in a display of innocence. “I didn’t say anything.”_ _

__Eric and Andrew both break out laughing and Chiddy skates up to Scott to clap him on the back. “Oh it’s one hundred percent your fault we guessed.”_ _

__“What?” Scott says._ _

__“Dude, you basically told me right after the Olympics. Do you need a list of all the things you’ve said?” Chiddy laughs. “You said you were happy she was finally with someone who was right for her. You always, always over emphasized Tessa was seeing a person or having a romantic partner. And I’m pretty sure at one point you asked if they looked cute together! Maybe in Vancouver on Tessa’s birthday?”_ _

__“That one day in Japan,” Kaetlyn says. “You told me Tessa was calling her _person_ back home and that’s why she wasn’t hanging out, and when I saw her later she told me she was talking to Emmy, because they keep in touch.” _ _

__“Uh,” Tessa starts, not sure if she should laugh or cry or both. She’s both mortified that everyone knew without her telling and relieved at the fact that her friends had figured it out but didn’t badger her to tell them, let her come to them when she was comfortable. She’s thankful for them. “So, I guess none of you are as surprised by this as I thought you’d be?”_ _

__In the end, coming out to the cast of their tour ends up being much more anticlimactic than she anticipated. Except for learning that, bless his heart, Scott trying not to tell ended up being more obvious than anything else and maybe she talked about Emmy a lot during the summer._ _

__“Should we start dancing now?” Emmy asks the group that has clearly been derailed, clapping her hands together and putting on her teacher hat, sensing Tessa’s growing discomfort at having all the attention on their relationship. “Marie and I wanted to start with the closing number because we think it will take the longest to perfect.”_ _

__As everyone else gets into their instructed positions Tessa skates over to Emmy, just to give her hand a squeeze, grounding herself to get back on track._ _

__“So,” Emmy says with a smile. “That wasn’t too bad. How are you feeling?”_ _

__“Good,” Tessa says. “A little embarrassed that pretty much everyone knew, but really good right now.”_ _

__“Blame Scott,” Emmy says with a wide grin and a chaste kiss to her cheek before skating off to teach the group._ _

__**_ _

__“I’m a terrible girlfriend,” Tessa says with a huff, sitting down across from Scott, rubbing at her temples._ _

__“I highly doubt that,” he shoots back, not bothering to look up from his phone, taking a bite out of his apple._ _

__“It’s Em’s birthday today,” Tessa says, as if that’s an entire explanation._ _

__Scott looks up at her. “So I’ve been told, by you, multiple times this week...you didn’t forget it or anything, T.”_ _

__Tessa digs her fingers into her temples, before massaging her brow and the bridge of her nose, trying to counter the pressure that’s building inside her head. The fluorescent lights flicker above them and she has to close her eyes, avoiding the trigger._ _

__“Of course I didn’t forget...it’s just, this is her first birthday...you know since we’ve been together and we won’t get to see each other. I feel like crap. I’m tired, and my head hurts and I can’t see my girlfriend on her birthday.”_ _

__“It sucks,” Scott takes one of her hands in his, rubbing the top of it with his thumb, she can see the soft look of understanding in his eyes, in the gentle tilt of his head when she chances opening her eyes. She wonders if it’s his own girlfriend he’s been texting. “I’m sorry. But that doesn’t make you a bad girlfriend. It means you miss her.”_ _

__Tessa tries to shake her head, but it makes the room feel like it’s spinning. “I feel like it does. Like so much of this relationship has been spent over late night FaceTime calls...and that’s on me.”_ _

__“Clearly she thinks you’re worth it,” He chuckles and squeezes her hand gently. “Because you are, and she loves you.”_ _

__“Thank you,” she says, squeezing his hand back, three quick successions._ _

__They sit in quiet for a few minutes, holding hands across the table, Tessa resting her forehead on the cool surface, trying to block out the light and soothe her worsening migraine, before Scott gets up without a word and returns two minutes later with a bottle of water and one of ibuprofen._ _

__“I know naproxen is usually better for you, when you’re getting a migraine but this is what I could find.”_ _

__“Thanks,” she smiles, taking both from him._ _

__“So, what did you get Emmy for her birthday?” he asks, sitting back down._ _

__Tessa pops two of the ibuprofen in her mouth and swigs her water before answering. She bites at her bottom lip for a moment. She’d agonized over the gift for weeks, she’d never really gotten a birthday or Christmas gift for a partner before—she’d always been in training or the relationship had been fleeting—and she and Scott didn’t really do birthday gifts for one another. She isn’t sure if it’s too much, or not enough. What’s appropriate for eight months together when you spent the previous two years building up a close friendship and harbouring feelings for one another?_ _

__“It’s a moon necklace,” she says quietly. Scott nods even though she knows to him it’s just any old piece of jewelry, and she finds herself needing to explain. “It’s a tiny little gold crescent moon on a little chain...um, I don’t know, maybe it will be too much,” she pauses to breathe before barrelling on. “Uh, she has this old necklace that’s a crescent moon like that. Her mom bought it for her when she was little, she still has it but it was just a cheap little thing...one of those mood things, you know that change colour against your skin. But it’s tarnished and cracked and the little loop to hold it to the chain broke, so it’s just in a box. I thought it would be nice to have one she could wear...and I don’t know. Maybe she won’t like it? Will she think I’m overstepping since it was something special from her mom? I just thought—” she shrugs leaving the words hanging after having babbled out all her thoughts and worries without taking a breath._ _

__“That sounds like a perfect gift Tess,” he smiles at her, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “She’ll love it. And if she doesn’t she’ll say she does anyways.”_ _

__“Oh, very helpful,” she huffs out a laugh and rolls her eyes._ _

__**_ _

__Tessa is in the tour bus, huddled in her bunk that feels like it’s spinning, trying to will her head from exploding while the rest of the cast is at the meet and greet. She hates not being there, feeling like she’s disappointing fans and her friends who have to make up for her absence, but she doesn’t think at this point she could get up if she tried. After the show she’d all but crumpled in the tunnel, collapsing into the first chair she saw. Scott had found an arena staff member and had her escorted to the bus and their team physiotherapist is hanging out in the front of the bus watching a movie because he’d been worried about her being alone on the bus. As if she needs a babysitter._ _

__She shouldn’t be on her phone, the bright light hurting her eyes but she’s been staring at a photo of Emmy opening her birthday present for the last ten minutes. Her mom had sent it to her at some point during the show. Emmy has been teaching an intensive course in Toronto for young dancers, focusing on proper strength and technique for injury prevention, for the past week. It’s been hard knowing that Emmy is only an hour away and she still couldn’t manage to see her for her birthday because of scheduling. But Kate--who had taken to Emmy right away, maybe because she could tell how happy Tessa was--had suggested she surprise her with a visit._ _

__Her mom had called her a few weeks ago, just the mildest hint of nerves present in her tone and asked, “I was thinking, I know Em has a birthday coming up and I know she didn’t have much time with her own mom,” Kate had paused to take a deep breath, learning Emmy lost her mom at nine had upset her own mother greatly. “You and Jordan always loved when I’d take you for a little spa day, you know to get pedicures and facials...do you think she’d like that?”_ _

__“Yes,” she hadn’t missed the way that her own voice cracked with emotion at the idea of her mom wanting to take the time to bond with her girlfriend. It meant more than she really knew how to express, especially considering how her dad reacted to her coming out to family years ago. “Yes, she would love that. Thank you so much Mom, that means a lot to me...that you want to do that.”_ _

__“She’s a great girl, Tess,” she could hear the smile in her mom’s voice. “And I am happy to get a chance to love her as much as you do. I’m happy you’re happy.”_ _

__So, today Kate had driven to Toronto and treated Emmy to lunch and a spa afternoon. Tessa had gotten updates throughout the day, the last being the photo from her mom of Emmy opening the necklace from Tessa (she’d asked her mom to deliver it for her). Tessa can see the tears gathering in Emmy’s eyes, her palm pressed flat against her chest as she looks inside the necklace box. It makes Tessa happy to see how much Emmy seems to appreciate the gift and that she had someone there while she opened it, but sad in equal measure that she couldn’t be there, even though geographically they are far closer to each other than usual._ _

__She’s already spoken to Em twice today on FaceTime and texted her throughout the day. She started the morning by sending a bunch of celebration emojis, a birthday cake and a jack-o-lantern for good measure. Even though she should be resting she wants to call her once more before bed, just to see how her day was and to hear her voice._ _

__Emmy picks up on the first ring, like maybe she was waiting for Tessa’s call._ _

__“Hi beautiful,” she says._ _

__“Hey love,” Tessa says softly, shifting on to her side, closing her eyes. “How was your day? Did you have a good time being pampered at the spa?”_ _

__“It was really wonderful,” Emmy says, Tessa can hear her soft smile through the phone. “Though the nail tech did _not_ understand why I didn’t want acrylics. She just kept telling me my nails are too short.” _ _

__Tessa laughs lightly, her eyes closed under the low light in her bunk, phone pressed against her ear. She can picture the scene just by the subtle hint of exasperation in Emmy’s tone. “What colour did you get?”_ _

__“What would you say if I said black?” Tessa can hear her smile again, can picture how her lips turn up as she speaks. “It’s Halloween after all, I’m just embracing it.”_ _

__“Sounds perfect, very fitting and very you.”_ _

__“Your mom went more classic, very natural…like a peach or something.”_ _

__Tessa nods. “Of course, Kate likes to keep it classic for sure. Once when I was twelve, I convinced her to get dark purple, it only lasted three days.”_ _

__Emmy laughs and continues to speak in a soft soothing voice, cognizant of Tessa’s headache, as she continues to share about her day. Tessa hum and nods along, mostly just listening, being lulled by the sound of Emmy’s voice. She tells Tessa about how she met with Stephanie and Jerome for dinner and drinks, how she dressed up as Miss Frizzle from _The Magic School Bus_. She tells her about how much she wished Tessa could have been there, to spend time with her and her friends and it makes Tessa’s heart ache just a bit. She wants that too. _ _

__“Thank you,” Emmy says after a bit. “For the necklace, for your mom coming to meet me here, the coffee and the flowers this morning...for everything.”_ _

__Tessa smiles, tears prickling at the corners of her eyes, a mix of pain and emotions. “I love you so much,” is all she manages, using the back of her hand to wipe at her eyes. “I miss you.”_ _

__“Miss you too, babe,” Emmy says, suddenly sounding tired. “So much. But I’ll see you this weekend, I’ll be at the next group of shows...I can’t wait to see what you all have done with my choreography.”_ _

__“I’m excited,” Tessa says, trying to force herself to smile, even though Emmy can’t see her. “You’re still going to stay with me, in Toronto and London right?”_ _

__“I didn’t think that was a question,” Emmy says. “I am very much looking forward to it.”_ _

__“Happy birthday love,” Tessa says, her smile not forced anymore._ _

__“Happy Halloween,” Emmy laughs quietly. “But now you better go to sleep, feel better. Text me first thing in the morning, and if you send more coffee I wouldn’t complain...though I don’t think the sixteen year olds I have tomorrow morning will let it slide as easily as the fourteen year olds did that _the_ Tessa Virtue is sending their teacher coffee deliveries.” _ _

__Tessa laughs, “Noted. Coffee, but with hearts on the cup, with love Tessa.”_ _

__“I mean they’d love the gossip for sure,” she can hear the smile again, knows that that isn’t something she’d actually mind at all. “I love you, and I can’t wait to see you. But since I know you’re lying in your bunk trying to pretend you aren’t in immense pain, I am going to force you to hang up and go to sleep, okay?”_ _

__“Okay, thank you.”_ _

__“Love you.”_ _


	3. Dancing is just discovery, discovery, discovery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this is the end. I've had most of this chapter written for a few months now but really wanted to ensure that I took the time to give this universe the ending it deserved. From new jobs, to talking about moving in together, to weddings and publicly coming out... I hope this covers mostly everything for these two. 
> 
> I'll be sad to say goodbye to Emmy and to this iteration of Tessa and Scott and I hope you all enjoy. 
> 
> Thank you for reading and for all the amazingly supportive comments. Thanks to peacefulboo for being a sounding board and cheerleader through this story. Thank you eastfromeden for reading and to iwantthemtostay for betating this final chapter for me, you are all so wonderful. 
> 
> again the chapter title is a Martha Graham quote.

“So,” Emmy starts, fiddling with her phone before putting it down and picking up her coffee, taking a long sip and clutching the mug tightly. “I may have just gotten a job offer.” 

They’re sitting in Tessa’s kitchen in London having coffee. Emmy is spending most of the month of December with her — staying for the holidays. The sun pours in from the big window over the sink and catches in the frizzy bits of Emmy’s hair—still sleep rumpled—making it glow like a copper coloured halo. 

“Really?” Tessa asks, putting her mug down. “Where?” 

“Toronto,” Emmy says, running her finger anxiously along the rim of her mug, her eyes wide like she’s still trying to process the information herself. “The NBS wants to hire me, to be full time staff.”

Tessa raises her eyebrows, both in excitement and wondering how long this has been in the works, if Emmy had known earlier. “Really!? Like as a teacher? Or choreographer?”

“It would be more the physio side of things,” Emmy says, swivelling a bit on her stool. “It would sort of be like the artistic health team the Australian ballet has. I would be the lead of the team and kind of building on the workshops I’ve already been doing. Focusing on rehabilitation and prevention through dance technique and doing smaller group and one on one lessons with injured students. And I’d maybe have the opportunity to do more workshops and consulting work with the National Ballet.” 

“That sounds amazing, Em,” Tessa says, reaching out to put a hand on her arm to still her fidgeting. She can’t quite tell if she’s more nervous or excited or both. “Is that what you want to do?” 

“Yeah,” Emmy is nodding. “Yeah, I think so. If I can help the next generation in avoiding injury and have influence in teaching methods that’ll be huge. And as much as I love contemporary, in terms of dancing for myself, I do miss the ballet world, it’s where I grew up. I think maybe I’ll miss doing as much choreo, but I’m sure there will be opportunities for that. They love to use alumni for the spring showcase and I can see about working with the Toronto Dance Theatre on occasion.” 

“That’s so awesome, baby,” Tessa smiles, squeezing her arm. “That’s huge, that they want you on their staff.” She can’t help the excitement in her tone. 

“I know!” Emmy says, nearly yelling and blushes, looking a little sheepish as she lowers her tone, embarrassed by her own excitement, Tessa smiles. “I mean it isn’t a sure thing yet, we still need to sort out logistics as it would be a new position. John, the director, emailed today with the offer and they want me to come in to talk details next week, just before they start Christmas break.” She shrugs. 

She knows that this has really been Emmy’s passion for the past few years and as long as she has some outlet for her creative side—be it choreography or performing on occasion—that dance physiology and injury prevention is really where her heart is. She finished her second Master’s in Health and Exercise Physiology from Concordia last spring and the potential for a full time position in that field, at her alma mater, is amazing. Tessa is reigning herself in from doing a little happy dance on Emmy’s behalf, waiting to gauge Emmy’s full response. 

Emmy is good at her current job—Olympic medals levels good—and she loves her job. She loves choreography and teaching movement and if she were to stay in Montreal Tessa knows there’d be plenty of opportunity for her to work with more skaters too, if she wanted. But Emmy is always so invigorated and excited after she’s run a workshop with young dancers or done teacher training in injury prevention techniques, more so than she is after teaching a regular dance class. Tessa can only believe Emmy will feel a sense of purpose and fulfilment working full time with these students. Tessa wants her to be as excited as she feels for her.

“So, you’ll be in Toronto one day next week?” Tessa says, finding Emmy’s hand. “And then, you’d be moving back to Toronto for good?” She can’t help the excitement hooked on to the question mark at the end of her sentence. Or the slight nerves she feels. 

Tessa can’t help how her mind wanders, jumping—leaping, maybe—ahead into the future to something much more permanent than she’s really allowed herself to imagine to this point. Not before the prospect of Emmy moving back to Ontario was a reality. It’s not like they've never talked about the prospect of living together, but as long as Emmy was in Montreal, and Tessa was touring, it seemed far off. It was a one day, once things are settled, then we’ll talk seriously thing. But one day might actually be now, today. And Toronto? It’s so much closer than Montreal and she can’t help but be excited for the possibilities this opens up for them. Tessa has been thinking a lot about moving to Toronto the past few weeks, actually making it her home base. She has so much work there and she’s always flitting in and out. Emmy makes fun of her for living in the hotel, even calls it  _ Tessa’s Hotel.  _

A few months ago, just before the start of the tour Emmy had broached the subject while sprawled out on the white sheets of Tessa’s hotel room bed. “You know,” she’d said as she brushed her fingertips across the soft fabric, “As much as I love this, and will miss the concierge service, if I were to move back to Toronto you wouldn’t have to live in a hotel anymore.” 

Tessa had swallowed over the lump forming in her throat, could feel the sharp staccato of her heart pounding in her chest. She knew, eventually they’d have to talk about it, neither of them wanting to continue long term with long distance, but felt unsure how to navigate this kind of talk. So she’d asked, “You want to move back to Toronto?” 

Emmy had paused, rolled over on the bed to rest on her elbows and had looked at Tessa where she was standing next to the bed, hanging up her dress. “I mean,” she’d started, biting at her lip, “I’ve always felt at home here in the city...but I’d be flexible.” Emmy had shrugged then, like there was more to say but she hadn’t quite been ready yet. “I just know coming back this way, to Southern Ontario,” she emphasized southern, “has always been my plan. My grandparents are here, my friends…and you’re here. So this is where I want to be.”

So, Tessa’s been thinking about Toronto. Specifically, she’s been thinking about living in Toronto with Emmy. Living anywhere with Emmy, really. Spending the last week and a half with her, completely uninterrupted, being entirely more comfortable and domestic than she thought possible, has been nothing short of magical. She’s had to stop herself from saying,  _ Please never leave _ , more than once. Honestly, yesterday morning she had actually contemplated asking Emmy to just quit her job and move in with her until she finds something since she has more than enough for Emmy to not have to worry about work. She wouldn’t actually do that, wouldn’t ever ask Emmy to give everything up, but the thought has crossed her mind more than once. 

Tessa is brought back to the present when Emmy nods, a slow smile creeping across her face. “If this happens, I’d be moving to Toronto, yeah. I would start in March, since that’s when funding gets renewed. If it all works out I’d be moving to Toronto probably in February.”

February is only two months away, and Tessa can’t help her smile. February is close. February in Toronto. She can do that, she thinks. Up until now Tessa’s been reluctant to call Toronto home, it’s been making more and more sense, and maybe this will be the push she needs to go for it.

“I’m so happy for you,” she says,  _ for us and the future,  _ she thinks. 

“So, um, what do you think? How do you feel about Toronto?” Emmy asks, her big, dark eyes wide and warm, expectant. Tessa sees them flicker while she studies her face. “Is it somewhere you can see yourself? I know we’ve talked a bit about you making it your home base, is that something you actually want?”

Tessa pushes off her stool and wraps her arms around Emmy. She thinks about home and all she can picture is Em. She thinks of mixing her things with Emmy’s and tries to imagine how that makes her feel and is overwhelmed with warmth, the warmth of sunlight she feels every time Emmy smiles at her, and with comfort, the comfort of Emmy’s arms around her. It feels right. Maybe it's too early to move in together, they haven’t even been together for a year, but at the same time maybe it isn’t. She doesn’t know, she has no experience here, but it doesn’t feel scary, it doesn’t feel too early. It feels perfect. 

“It’s a pretty nice city, and if my girlfriend moves there I won’t have to live in a hotel when I’m in town,” Tessa smiles, her tone a bit teasing, trying to throw back to their conversation months ago.

“Yeah,” Emmy takes a breath, her eyes searching Tessa’s face. Her eyes are still bright, but Tessa notices the slight fall in her expression, the tiniest down turn in her lips. “Yeah. Of course you’d stay with me in Toronto, if I live there. Just like you do in Montreal. And it’s so much closer to here so it’ll be easier to visit. You’d definitely be over more.”

“It is. Definitely still close enough that a weekend in London to visit my mom isn’t out of the question,” Tessa smiles reassuringly, finding Emmy’s hand. She resists the urge to blurt out that she doesn’t want it to be like Montreal, she waits to let the weight of what she wants to say, wants to ask, settle. Keeping things light for a moment longer.

Emmy raises her eyebrows in question, mild confusion settling in her expression. “Yeah...Tess? I’m not sure I’m following...”

“Em,” Tessa smiles, cupping Emmy’s cheek, giving her a quick kiss. Emmy has been so great with her for their entire relationship, being patient and going at Tessa’s pace but still being the one to move things forward—asking Tessa to stay with her in Montreal, suggesting they share hotels in Toronto, bringing up the idea of settling in Toronto in the first place. Tessa thinks it’s time she takes the big leap and puts it all out there. She’s ready. “You’re right, I’ve been thinking of Toronto as a home base. I’m there so much and if you’re there, that’s where I want to be. Nowhere else. If you take this job and you move to Toronto, I think it’s time for me to start thinking of moving there too.”

Emmy nods, smiling once more. “It would be really nice to be in the same city all the time.” 

Tessa swallows and takes her chance, she trusts they’re going to be on the same page, that Emmy’s been holding back directly asking because she isn’t sure Tessa is ready, but she is. She’s very ready, and this past week has just confirmed that for her. “I was thinking the same house, or well, condo most likely if we want to be right in the city.” 

Emmy buries her face in Tessa’s shoulder and squeezes her around the middle, laughing in disbelief and sheer giddiness. She can feel Emmy’s smile through her shirt. “Yes. Yes. I...yes, that would really be the best option.” 

“It would,” Tessa squeezes her back, running her hands up and down Emmy’s back. Feeling the warmth of her skin through her thin t-shirt, absorbing her heat, letting it calm her, knowing that this is what she could have everyday. “It seems silly to have two places in the same city anyways, when we know we’d only use one.”

“Irresponsible really,” Emmy laughs. “But if you aren’t going to be living out of a fancy hotel anymore..it would be nice if you still treated your girlfriend to a special night or two in the fancy ass hotel she’s become accustomed to,” she laughs. “I really will miss the concierge service there,” she says. 

“I’m sure I could still find some occasions to spoil my amazing girlfriend,” she laughs and kisses Emmy’s neck. “Really though, are we saying what I think we’re saying here? If you move to Toronto, I don’t want it to be your place where I stay; I want to find something together. A place that’s ours.”

Emmy pulls away and Tessa reaches to tuck a stray hair behind Emmy’s ear, they’re both smiling and Emmy is nodding. “Yeah. Yeah. Fuck. Of course that’s what I want.” she laughs. “Besides, together we can probably get more than a basement shoebox, we need enough space for all your clothes.” 

“Probably,” Tessa smiles. 

“Is it bad that I don’t technically have the job yet but now I just want to look at real estate?”

“Is it bad that I thought the same thing?”

Emmy shakes her head, still smiling at Tessa. She has this look of what Tessa can only describe as complete wonder on her face. Her expression is soft, head tilted slightly to the side, her lips slightly parted. Lifting one of her hands to cup Tessa’s cheek she leans in for the gentlest kiss, slow and lingering. “I’m really happy,” she says when she pulls away. 

Tessa nods. “Yeah,” she takes a breath. “Me too, I’m excited for you, for us...everything. And, even if it isn’t for this job or isn’t Toronto, I still...I want to explore this—the idea of living together, sooner rather than later. If that’s what you want.”

“Yes,” Emmy says, kissing her again. “Of course that’s what I want. If you asked me to quit and move in with you right now, honestly I probably would. Fuck even going back to Montreal for my things.” 

Tessa laughs, throwing her head back. “I was thinking the same thing! But you’ll want to say goodbye to your students and you’d get so bored.”

“I would!” she laughs and pulls Tessa in for another kiss. “I’d have no idea what to do all day.”

**

There is something magical about Christmas in her childhood home. It’s comforting in its nostalgia. Even when the ornaments on the tree are different, when the colours on the walls have changed over the years, the couch has been replaced, and the kitchen has been renovated it, the family photos on the wall have changed, updated over time as their family dynamic also changed —with some new members added and one whose previously sturdy presence has seemed to disappear from this house entirely--it still feels the same. It definitely smells the same. Tessa breathes in the scent of pine from the big tree in the living room, and the holiday candles her mom always gets and the spiced apple smell of the cider she knows is in a pot on the stove.

“It smells like Christmas,” Tessa says as she gives Emmy a smile and a little one armed squeeze as they stomp the snow off their boots, taking them and their coats off in the foyer. It feels like Christmas too and she loves the feeling. 

Emmy smiles at her, beaming, the definition of  _ merry and bright _ , as she shrugs out of her jacket and smooths out her dress. The dress is black and ankle length with a floral pattern, and she looks so pretty with her long hair down and a little wild, Tessa's smile broadens at the picture before her. Tessa hangs their coats and fixes the tie on her red velvet wrap dress, smoothing her newly cut hair down after taking off her hat. 

Though she’s missed more Christmases at home than she’d like because of skating, that only makes being here this Christmas more special. Especially being here after missing last year, and being here with Emmy. She hopes there will be many, many Christmases to follow like this where she can be at home and be here with Emmy, so blissfully happy. She reflects with a small smile that this will actually be her second Christmas Eve spent with Emmy—even though the circumstances are entirely different.

Last year they’d dismantled the whole second half of their free dance before nationals. They’d only taken two days for Christmas break. Emmy had stayed in Montreal to help. Marie had called her to advise on the choreographic changes and she’d been more than happy to work over the holidays. Tessa wasn’t sure how much to ask then, but now knows all the details of her mom’s passing and how she likes to be distracted over the holidays. 

“So, does Kate put up three Christmas trees too?” Emmy asks as they follow the buzz of voices towards the kitchen. Emmy hadn’t quite understood Tessa’s multiple trees. “I can’t even remember the last time I put up one!” she’d laughed. But she’d helped Tessa get them decorated and seemed endeared by it anyways, even if she thought it a bit extravagant. 

“Only two,” Tessa laughs. “One in the living room, so you can see it from the street, through the big window, and then one in the family room. That’s where the presents actually go.” 

“Did you ever wonder how Santa knew which tree was the right one?” Emmy raises her eyebrows and smirks. “The fireplace is in the living room, so what if he got confused, stopped at the first tree he saw?” 

“He looked for the cookies! Besides, Santa knows everything.” 

They’re both laughing by the time they enter the kitchen and her mom abandons whatever she was doing at the stove to rush over to them. 

“Hi sweetie,” she says, wrapping Emmy up in a tight hug. “I’m so happy to have you here tonight.” 

“Thanks for inviting me Kate,” Emmy says, hugging her back. “It smells amazing in here, let me know if you need any help.” 

Her mom shakes her head. “Don’t be silly, go find Jordan and she’ll get you some cider.” 

Emmy smiles, pulling away from the hug, before excitedly reaching into the reusable green Sobey’s bag slung on her arm. “Oh! We brought pie! It’s my grandma’s pie...well, her recipe but Tessa and I made it yesterday.” 

Tessa’s mom looks right at her, eyebrows raised. “You made pie?” 

“Em is being nice. I helped by keeping her company and reading the recipe, sometimes making sure she got the measurements right. Also sampling,” Tessa laughs lightly, taking her turn to give her mom a hug, settling herself in the familiar embrace. She’d gone shopping with her mom a few days ago, and had spent the day with her when Emmy was in Toronto, but she still feels comforted every time she sees her. “Merry Christmas, Mom.” 

“Merry Christmas sweetheart,” her mom says, squeezing her tightly, before lowering her voice. “You look lovely, both of you. It’s been a good visit so far I gather?” 

Tessa nods. “It’s been really, really great.” Emmy is already making her way further into the kitchen to put the pie on the counter, being beckoned to the cider by Jordan who is now waving at Tessa too, with a little smirk. “Em,” Tessa calls. “If Jordan made the cider don’t let her pour you a full glass.” 

“She’ll be fine,” Jordan calls back, laughing while ladelling some cider from a big pot on the stove into a glass. 

“She will not. She has like one glass of wine and is done for an entire night, please don’t kill my girlfriend with spiked cider.” Tessa shakes her head as she walks across the kitchen towards her sister, feeling the comfort of old routine, relaxing at the fact that Emmy seems to fit right in to it. 

Emmy laughs, Tessa’s favourite big bright laugh. “I’m right here,” Emmy shakes her head. “And I assume that your sister isn’t trying to get me drunk my first Christmas here,” she says, taking a glass from Jordan, who only shrugs. 

“So your grandparents don’t mind we’re stealing you for Christmas?” Jordan asks as Emmy settles herself onto a stool at the island. 

“I actually think they might have been glad,” Emmy laughs. “They have friends with a condo in Myrtle Beach and decided to spend the holidays there. It’s not summer weather, but they’re getting highs of fifteen and are pretty happy with it. Besides they love Tessa, so when she told them she wanted to bring me to Christmas here they were more than willing to go along.” Emmy doesn’t need to explain to Tessa’s family that the anniversary of her mother’s death falls right after Christmas so though her grandparents kept up the traditions when she was younger, once she was in university and working part time in Toronto and then in Montreal full time half the time they don’t even bother with a tree. It’s not something sad, Emmy assures her. It’s just not something as important to them.

“Tessa does know how to turn on the charm,” Jordan says, nudging her in the ribs before handing her her own glass of cider. Tessa lets the warmth of it permeate her hands, travel up arms, savouring the smell before taking a sip, as Jordan turns back to Emmy. “Tessa said you were in Toronto last Tuesday, but you didn’t visit me for barre!” 

“No!” Emmy laughs. “I had two meetings at the NBS and I really didn’t want to die first. Or honestly, wake up that early.” 

Jordan laughs. “You need to come to one of my classes at least once Miss Ballerina, you can totally handle it.” 

“Former ballerina,” Emmy corrects with a laugh. “I don’t know, Tessa complains about your classes being hard and she’s definitely in better shape than me.”

Tessa laughs and assures Emmy this is not true. Maybe when she was still in Olympic shape, training everyday and restricting her eating, but today, probably not. She still works to maintain her fitness levels, but not the same way as when she’s training. Emmy she knows doesn’t love what she considers “working out” but does do pilates with Tessa and dances all the time; whether it is teaching or just moving around the house, she’s always dancing. They banter back and forth with Jordan about whether or not her barre class is difficult and about who is in the best shape—both Emmy and Jordan fix her with glares when she claims it isn’t her—until they’re distracted by a commotion at the front door. 

Moments later an excited Poppy skids into the kitchen, the bottoms of her woolen, polka dot tights slipping on the floor. “Nana!” she yells, rushing straight to her grandmother’s arms. Kate smiles and picks her up.

“Merry Christmas, Miss Poppy,” she says before putting the four year old back on the floor. 

Poppy then excitedly greets Jordan before skidding to a stop in front of Tessa, wrapping her arms around the back of Tessa’s thighs to hug her tight. “Auntie Tess!” the little girl buries her head in Tessa’s stomach and Tessa strokes her hair. “You’re here!” It tugs at her heart a bit that her niece sounds so surprised that she’s at a family gathering. Since the Olympics she’s been trying harder to be present with her family but with touring and work and visiting Emmy as often as possible she maybe hasn’t been doing the best job. She vows to herself to do better, to spend as much time this winter, while she has fewer commitments, with Poppy. 

“I am!” she holds Poppy close to her. “You get to hang with me all night, and again tomorrow after lunch.” 

Poppy smiles and then Tessa tries not to feel a pang of jealousy when her eyes absolutely light up, so bright and wide with glee when she spots Emmy--who Poppy is fairly certain is a mix between Merida from  _ Brave  _ and Ariel. “You’re here too!” she shrieks, running over to Emmy with her arms wide. 

Emmy is already sliding off the kitchen stool, ready to catch the little girl running towards her, entirely unphased by the level of enthusiasm. Watching Emmy catch Poppy and spin her around, both of them grinning and laughing, makes her heart flutter in her chest. She knows she’s sporting a pretty dopey grin herself. And though she wishes she’d get such an energetic greeting, she’s so so happy that Emmy in the few times she’s met Poppy left such an impression on the little girl—Tessa thinks it’s probably because Emmy knows the words to most Disney soundtracks (at least from the late 80s to early 2000s) and is more than happy to sing and dance to Poppy’s hearts content. 

“I am here,” Emmy says, pulling Poppy up so she’s on her hip. The four year old looks so big in Emmy’s arms, but she holds her so easily. “I came with your Auntie Tess to spend Christmas.” 

Poppy is running her fingers along the scoop neck collar of Emmy’s dress, tracing the flowers. “This is pretty,” she says.

“Thank you,” Emmy smiles, looking down to examine her own dress, like she’s seeing it for the first time too, then she looks at Poppy’s Christmas dress and exaggerates her awed expression. “Your dress is really pretty too, you know this shade of green is one of my favourites, did you pick this yourself? It’s pretty stylish.” Poppy nods, and Tessa smiles at how wonderful with Poppy Emmy is, she’s so absorbed in watching them she hardly notices Casey come in and give her a side hug when Emmy says to Poppy, “Your auntie picked mine out for me.”

“Do you live with Auntie Tess?” Poppy asks, looking toward Tessa then back to Emmy. “Are you married?” she adds more quietly, almost conspiratorially. 

Emmy smiles at Poppy’s expression, eyebrows raised, leaning in close, like she’s expecting a great secret. But she hesitates to answer, looking to Tessa for guidance, aware that this is Tessa’s family and it should be her who shares the details of their relationship if and when she’s comfortable. 

Tessa clears her throat and doesn’t miss that the eyes of every adult in the room have fallen on her, trying to gauge how she will answer. They’ve never actually discussed with Poppy who Emmy is to Tessa, mostly because it hadn’t come up before, not because they don’t want her to know. Poppy has met Emmy maybe four times now, almost every time Tessa has seen her since the spring actually, and Poppy had been perfectly content just to accept Emmy as the person who is usually with her auntie and hasn’t asked for another explanation until now. 

“Emmy stays with me when she visits, yes,” Tessa says, closing the gap between herself and where Emmy still stands holding Poppy. She chooses to be entirely honest, but also tries to pick her words carefully so she doesn’t confuse Poppy. “We don’t live together, yet. But we’re going to soon. Is that cool?” she asks, and Poppy nods. “And we aren’t married, but she is my girlfriend and I really like her a whole lot.”

“Me too,” says Poppy with a definitive nod, clearly satisfied with the answer. “You should get married,” she says, both to Tessa and Emmy. “Because boys are gross. Except Daddy.”

Emmy snorts and smirks in her direction, but Tessa feels the skip in her heartbeat and an almost uncomfortable warmth seeping from her chest at the mention of marriage, because it’s not that she doesn’t want it—one day—but she feels like it’s ten steps ahead of where they are, even though maybe it’s not. 

But Emmy is still smiling, shaking Poppy gently in her arms with a chuckle and a wink. “Boys are gross,” she says. “I totally agree.”

Casey laughs and nods. “She can keep thinking that until she’s at least thirty.” 

“Ah,” Tessa laughs. “Thirty, the magic age where boys stop being gross. You have five months, babe,” she nudges Emmy, who snorts again. Casey and his wife Megan, who has just come in the kitchen, can’t help their laughs either.

“She can think they’re gross forever,” he amends, pulling Tessa into another side hug.

**

“So,” Kate says, sitting next to Tessa on the couch while she watches Emmy very patiently play a game of  _ Guess Who?  _ with Poppy, who understands the concept of the game quite well but can’t read the names of the characters and often asks far too specific questions. “Moving in together, this is a new development? Because of Toronto?” her mom keeps her voice low, almost drowned out by the chatter of her siblings and Poppy’s excited voice whenever she asks a good question. 

They’ve finished dinner and all opened their one Christmas Eve gift, the game being Poppy’s. The discussion about Tessa admitting to Poppy that she and Emmy would be moving in together was brief, a few  _ that’s great Sams  _ and  _ I’m so happy for yous _ . Her siblings know her enough to let her share details at her own pace, except Jordan, who she knows will hound her later. 

Since Kate insisted that Emmy didn’t need to help clean up from dinner (Emmy cleared a few plates anyways), she offered to play with Poppy instead. Tessa has watched the past few rounds in awe of the patience and kindness her girlfriend has with her little niece. In another life, she thinks she could have been a kindergarten teacher. And she knows, can feel it deep inside herself, that Emmy will be an amazing mom one day. 

Tessa nods. “The job definitely pushed us in the direction of talking about it, but I think we both wanted to for a while.” 

“By the sounds of it, this will be a really good job for Emmy,” her mom says, and Tessa can’t help but notice she sounds a little proud. “The NBS is basically creating a job just for her!” Tessa nods, unable to contain her own proud smile. “And if they do, it’s no small thing. This is a long term career move for her. Is Toronto what you want?” 

She wants to say  _ I want whatever she does,  _ but she knows that isn’t an answer her mom will accept. “Yes, it is.” Maybe it isn’t what she thought she’d want a few years ago, but now yes. Emmy being there is the most important thing, but it’s also where she has the most opportunity, where she’ll be able to blend into crowds and be just Tessa so much more easily. And at the end of the day she knows no matter what, she loves Emmy enough to make these kinds of compromises. 

“I’m glad,” Kate says. “I’m so glad. You’re going to be so happy, sweetheart, I can tell. It’ll be really good for you.” 

“I hope so,” Tessa says, with just a touch of nerves. 

“I know so,” her mom says, looking to watch Emmy with Poppy as Tessa is and smiling when Poppy wins the game and jumps into Emmy’s lap. “I know you love each other enough to make it work, or to know if it isn’t going to. But I really do think you will make it work. I know you’ve never been here before, Tess, but that doesn’t mean the experiences you have, what you have been through hasn’t prepared you for this next big step in your life.” Her mom answers the fears that she wasn’t able to voice aloud. 

She nods, leaning into her mom. She was confident in her decision but there is something about her mom’s assurance that this is a good thing, specifically that she can do this that settles her, puts her at ease. She knows her mom is right, this is a good thing. They can do this. And she is so happy. She looks back at Emmy who is sitting cross legged on the floor with Poppy settled in her lap--Poppy has given up playing on her own and has chosen to be on Emmy’s team playing against Jordan. Tessa imagines a similar, yet very different, scene a few years from now and finds herself hopeful to get there. 

**

“You need to relax,” Emmy says as she rubs Tessa’s shoulders. She’s just popped the heirloom carrots and baby potatoes she’s roasting into the oven after she was satisfied with their seasoning — all the while Tessa peered over her shoulder. 

“I am relaxed,” she says, but she can feel the muscles of her face pulling into a pout before she realizes what she’s doing.

Emmy laughs, shaking her head and kissing the tip of her nose. “You’re cute,” she says with a shake of her head and a poorly concealed snort. “It’s just Scott and Kacey.”

Tessa nods. It’s just Scott and Kacey, coming to have a real grown up dinner that Emmy is making — has been working on for the last two hours — in their new home. They’ve had her mom and Jordan over and Emmy’s grandparents and a few nights ago Jerome and James and Stephanie and her husband and their two boys and the evening went so well. She felt so grown up and domestic and she hates to say it, but so blissfully normal hosting her girlfriend’s friends in their joint home. She wasn’t Tessa the Olympic champion or Canada’s sweetheart or media darling. She was Tessa, Emmy’s girlfriend. But that’s what Emmy’s relationship with her friends is like, they go to one another’s homes for dinner, or drinks or game night. That has never been the relationship she and Scott had, everything had always been attached to skating. 

It’s not exactly that she’s nervous, she loves Scott, he loves her and he certainly doesn’t care if the place settings are proper or if there’s a center piece on the table. He’ll be thrilled because the roast Emmy has had in the oven since three and the ceramic dish of seasoned veggies she just popped in the oven will satisfy his wish for meat and potatoes. But, she wants him to be proud of her. It’s not exactly that she wants to impress him, but their whole career, their whole lives really, they’ve worked hard improving for one another, at being the other’s biggest supporter. In ice dance she was only able to measure her own success by his. She could look at him, next to her on top of the podium and feel herself bursting bright with pride and admire all the work she knew he put in to get there. She knows it was the same for him. 

She wants him to be able to step into her new home, one she is sharing with her life partner, and be proud. She didn’t think she’d ever be able to get here. To be so fulfilled by her life. To be in a long term committed relationship with someone she loves more than she can even begin to explain. To be in a position where she has a real future possible with this person. Where with each passing day she feels closer to feeling ready to shout her love from the rooftops. Sometimes when she’s with Scott she still feels like the nervous seven year old who first took his hand, or the 20 year old who needed him to hold her up on their first Olympic podium when her legs gave up, or the 23 year old who was grappling to come to terms with who she was. 

She wants Scott to be able to come over and to say,  _ Look how far we’ve come, kiddo.  _

She kisses Emmy on the cheek and feels herself relaxing. She is so grateful for this woman and so very in love. She was a little worried when they moved in together that the flutter she feels inside her chest, that the warmth and affection and need she has to be near her would fade, but it didn’t. It changed a bit, sure, but only to become warmer, more comforting. “I love you,” is what she ends up saying. “Thank you for cooking and you know everything…” 

“Mm,” Emmy smiles as she hums. “Like dealing with your neuroses.”

“Hey,” she laughs, swatting Emmy’s arm playfully. 

“Love you,” Emmy says, wiping her hands on a dishtowel and leaning in to kiss Tessa on the lips. “It’s gonna be a great night, I can feel it.” 

Tessa nods, pulling her in for a firmer kiss, pressing their bodies together to convey her gratitude. “It will,” she says as she pulls away. She looks around their kitchen and through to the dining room, where she has the table set, probably in a way that looks too much like it’s straight out of the pages of a magazine, but she likes things to be perfect and aesthetically pleasing. She kept things relatively simple, two small galvanized metal flower buckets: one with white tulips, the other with white daisies, on either side of a comically large candle that her mom had gotten her for Christmas. At either end of the table were glass bottles with hinged lids filled with lemon water and her favourite part were the crystal water glasses that had belonged to Emmy’s grandmother from the seventies, still in pristine condition. It looks pretty perfect. 

Back where they stand in the kitchen, the view is pretty perfect too. Emmy is swaying her hips to the music playing from the Echo on the counter. It makes Tessa smile, how Emmy seems incapable of being still when music is playing, her body needing to move to the beat of it. Most of the time she doesn’t even realize she’s doing it, her body just finds the rhythm of its own accord and dances. Her hair is escaping in little wisps from the French braids she’d put it in last night and she’s wearing sweatpants, rolled up her calves to just under her knees, and a loose t-shirt that is nearly sheer from wear, the logo of a Boston dance company that Tessa believes hasn’t existed in the last decade peeling off the front. She’s smiling at Tessa, tilting her head in a silent  _ what’s up?  _

Tessa pulls her phone out of her pocket and snaps a picture of Emmy standing in the middle of the kitchen, in front of the stove, hand on her hip, head cocked to the side with a questioning smirk. She snaps a few more while Emmy rolls her eyes, but poses playfully for her. She wants to capture this memory, wants snapshots of this moment in their new kitchen, Emmy cooking dinner -- a dinner that she normally wouldn’t cook as she isn’t a big beef eater, but willingly spent hours combing through recipes to find the perfect one just for Tessa’s best friend-- in her lounge clothes. They haven’t turned the kitchen lights on yet and the sun is starting to get low in the sky casting the whole room in a warm orange light. 

“You’re cute,” Tessa says, giggling, smiling at Emmy as she swipes through the series of photos she’s snapped. The golden glow around Emmy, wrapping around her, kissing her skin, lighting up her hair like fire, is the perfect visual embodiment of the feeling of love and warmth, the comfort and affection, she feels in this moment. 

“I should probably hop in the shower and get dressed before they get here,” Emmy says, standing on her toes to peek at the pictures on Tessa’s phone screen. “Can you keep an eye on the food?” She must notice how Tessa’s eyes widen at that and she chuckles. “Babe, you don’t need to do anything, it should be fine but if the timer on the oven goes off before I’m done just take everything out.”

“That’s a lot of trust in my ability to not ruin dinner,” Tessa laughs. 

Emmy kisses her, Tessa can feel her smile against her lips as she works a hand into her hair. The kiss ends up being deep and lingering for the middle of the kitchen with the oven on and Emmy still needing to get ready, but Tessa can’t find it in herself to break apart. Emmy eventually does, pecking Tessa on the lips a few times before grinning at her. “You won’t ruin anything.” 

With that she turns on her heels and leaves down the hall towards their bedroom and ensuite bathroom, walking away with an exaggerated wiggle of her hips as she does, just to make Tessa smile. Tessa looks back at the photos she’d just taken on her phone, and then decides to snap a few of her table setting and the dinner in the oven to post to her social media. Her private life is still private and those pictures of Em are just for her, but she’s been making a concerted effort to be a little more open with her public persona. She’s trying to offer a small window into her private life, to offer glimpses into her days. Which, yes, very often include photoshoots, and sponsored posts, and media days but just as often feature finding a new little café with her girlfriend, or a flower arrangement that makes her smile, or taking a barre class with her sister, or nerves over hosting a dinner party for her friends. Her public pages are still heavily curated, but she tries to set aside a few posts a month (usually stories posted on her Instagram) of things she wants to share that are just her. She thinks they’re the things she’d be sharing regularly or social media if she were just a girl without the whole of Canada interested in what she’ll do next. 

When she and Emmy moved in together they knew that eventually rumours would probably start and, even if not the general public, fans might catch on. Tessa wanted to be in front of any speculation, without necessarily revealing anything. So she’s allowed herself to post certain things that on their own reveal very little as to her relationship status but if someone really cared to look closer and had the right information would be obvious. She still gets a certain amount of anxiety over what people will and won’t think or notice, but she’s trying to loosen her hold on things just a bit. Like the day that Emmy posted  _ my girlfriend knows me well. my favourite flowers from my favourite person for my first day at the NBS  _ and later that same day Tessa’s own story had included the same flower arrangement in the background where they sat centrally on the long narrow console table behind their couch. Giving too much still creates a tightness in her chest that she can’t seem to relax through, her timeline is still very curated but when the chips fall she doesn’t want to seem like she lied about her life. 

She posts a few artful photos of her table setting and when Emmy is dressed and ready she decides to take a little video of her pulling dinner out of the oven, her hair out of the braids and wild around her face, wearing a low cut silky blouse with highwaisted pants, with the ambiguous caption of  _ She’s saving me from burning dinner.  _ When Scott and Kacey arrive she gets one more of all of them and posts it with  _ Old friends, new place  _ and turns her phone off for the rest of the evening. 

**

“This is so good, Tess,” Scott says, using his thumb to wipe gravy off the corner of his mouth. 

Tessa shakes her head and laughs. “It’s flattering that you think I had anything to do with the food. That was all Em.” 

Emmy squeezes her thigh under the table and winks. “You were supposed to take credit unless they hated it.” 

Kacey is looking between the two of them with a soft smile, her long dirty blonde hair is pulled back into a low ponytail. She’s wearing a long sleeve blue dress that compliments the blue of Scotts dress shirt, which makes Tessa smile in return. It’s maybe a weird thing to be happy about, but she spent the last few years helping Scott shop and pick out his clothes and to learn how to complement them to hers. She has no idea if those lessons stuck, but he looks good tonight and she’s glad he has someone willing to help him put an outfit together. And they both look happy, relaxed and at ease and honestly near glowing. 

“The food is really good, Em,” Kacey says. “I think this guy,” she nudges Scott, “is in love, so I will definitely have to get the recipe from you.”

“It’s from my grandma,” Em starts. “Tess and I don’t cook beef often, usually chicken and fish, but this one is pretty straightforward and I’m honestly pretty sure it’s from like a homemakers book from like the seventies or eighties.” 

“Straightforward is in my wheelhouse of cooking abilities for sure,” Kacey smiles at Emmy, laughing before picking her fork back up to finish her meal. 

They eat in relative quiet for the next few minutes but when Tessa notes that most of the plates are close to empty and everyone has slowed down a bit she looks up to Kacey, preparing a list of questions in her head. She’s met Kacey a number of times, and knows enough about her from Scott and she likes her, she’s nice and so well suited to him but she doesn’t know her well, not yet. 

“Kacey,” Tessa starts, “are you still planning on coaching the high school rowing teams again this spring?” 

Kacey nods enthusiastically and Tessa can already tell this is something she’s really passionate about. “Yeah. I’ve already started helping out with the dry land training at the school and the on water season starts in April, so we’ve got about a month.” 

“The girls really love working with Kace,” Scott says. Tessa can’t see under the table but she can tell that he’s affectionately squeezing Kacey’s knee and his bright grin clearly displays the pride he feels for his girlfriend. 

Kacey blushes and tucks a stray strand of her dirty blonde hair behind her ear. “I think it’s nice for them to have a female coach, growing up I only had male coaches and I think it really coloured how I viewed the sport,” she shrugs. “And they also know I work with the national team and know people who went to the Olympics!” 

Everyone around the table laughs. 

“It’s really great that you’re there to offer that positive female mentorship in the sport,” Emmy says. 

“I don’t know about that, but I love doing that and I hope I’m helping. It’s tough because the girls crews just don’t get the same priority as the men’s. So the boys get to take out the new boat that the school fundraised to buy but the girls get whatever’s available that they can borrow from another school or from the club. I want to show them that someone cares about their experience in the sport. I’ve had some of the ladies from the national rowing team come in to talk with them and it was pretty great.” 

“That sounds amazing,” Tessa says and she means it. The care that Kacey clearly has for the young girls she coaches amazes her, she can see why Scott’s so proud. “I want to have that kind of direct impact.” 

“You do!” both Kacey and Scott jump in simultaneously. Kacey laughs and clears her throat, “If you have time the next time you’re back home in London you should come talk to them. They’d be thrilled to meet you and ask you questions.” 

“I’ve offered to talk to them a few times,” Scott smiles looking to Kacey to his left and wiggling his eyebrows in that way that’s just him. “They didn’t really care… I think the reaction was ‘Scott who? Oh, that guy who skates with Tessa’.” 

Tessa snorts at that. “I find that hard to believe.” 

“It’s true,” Kacey smiles. “They were in fact not super interested in meeting Scott but love that I know you. You’re definitely a positive role model already, Tess.”

Tessa’s still shaking her head, she can feel heat rising to her cheeks as she begins to clear everyone’s dishes now that they’re all finished eating. She wants to be a mentor, she really does want to have a positive impact on girls in sport, but she doesn’t feel like she really deserves any credit for that yet. 

As she gathers everyone’s plates the conversation shifts to Kacey’s work with the national team. Tessa excuses herself to clean. She’ll give them all some time to chat and digest while the kettle boils before bringing out tea and dessert (Gertie’s apple pie of which she brought them several when she and George came for dinner last week). Despite her protests Scott gets up to help her clear the dishes, telling their girlfriends to stay as they are, chatting about some new rehabilitation practice. 

Scott kisses Emmy on the cheek as he passes her on his way to the kitchen. “Dinner was delicious, E.” 

“Thanks Scott,” she smiles at him before turning back to Kacey to continue their conversation. Tessa can hear her voice rising as she talks, like it does when she’s excited about something. 

“Look at them talking shop,” Scott says to Tessa, looking over his shoulder fondly at their girlfriends at the table completely absorbed in conversation, while he loads the dishwasher and she gets the kettle going for tea. Kacey has started to demonstrate some kind of point, or maybe a therapy, with her hands and Emmy listens along, nodding her head. 

“It’s nice.” Tessa watches them from the kitchen standing next to Scott, who puts his arm around her shoulders, pulling her into his side, the most familiar embrace. She’s struck by how easy this feels, the four of them together having dinner.  _ Like we’re normal friends,  _ Tessa thinks. 

“Tonight’s been great, kiddo,” he says. “Really good.” She nods and tucks herself into him. “I’m proud of us.” 

She nods. “I’m proud of us too.” She pulls just far enough away from him to hold her hand up for a high five, which they both miss the mark on entirely. She barks out a laugh, it’s loud and unrestrained and then he’s laughing too, wrapping his arms around her in a tight embrace as his body shakes against hers. 

Both Emmy and Kacey turn to look at them from the dining room table. Kacey raises her eyebrows at them, a question forming on her lips before Scott simply shrugs. “21 years and three Olympic golds later and we still can’t high five like normal people.” 

“I keep telling you it’s all about looking at the elbow!” Kacey says, and she’s laughing now too. 

Emmy shakes her head at them but is laughing too, her little laugh where she bites her lip like she’s trying to hold the sound in but her body shakes with it. 

Then the four of them burst into hysterics. She feels drunk off the happiness that surrounds her, the love and friendship and the little bit of ridiculousness. 

**

“It was a good night,” Emmy says, as she turns down the covers to get into bed while Tessa tosses the extra throw pillows onto the chair in the corner. “I had a good time and you seemed super happy.” 

“I was.” Tessa crawls into her side of the bed, tucking her feet under the white duvet as Emmy kicks her slippers off and climbs in after. 

**

It's a Tuesday night and Loblaws is blessedly empty. Tessa is standing in front of a freezer full of Haagen-Dazs and Ben ‘n Jerry’s trying to pick a flavour while Emmy does the shopping they need to actually cook dinner. She’s about to open the freezer door when she hears someone approach. 

“Tess?” It’s a familiar voice, wrapping around her name in the same way it has since the day she was born, yet it sounds different, distant and unsure, it lacks the warmth she’d known it to have. 

“Dad?” she asks as she spins around, though she knows the answer, doesn’t need to look. 

It’s been years since she’s really spoken to her father, since just before Sochi, really. Not since she’d come out to her family and he’d told her she was just confused because their season wasn’t going their way, because things were rocky between her and Scott.  _ This isn’t you,  _

he’d said,  _ you’re just confused, Tess. Couldn’t you have waited until the Olympics were over to have your little crisis?  _ His words are still so crushingly clear in her head. She doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to forget the bite of anger, of disappointment, like her being gay cost them the gold. Like a gold medal was worth more than her happiness and wellbeing. 

He’d called her to congratulate her on the Olympics last year, she’d said thanks and quickly found an excuse to hang up. He hasn’t tried to call since. 

Now, they just stand there for a moment, in the freezer section at the grocery store, neither entirely sure what to say. Her chest feels tight, like she can’t get a proper breath and she doesn’t want to be here, face to face with him. He’d made her feel like being gay was all in her head, caused by stress, that she was wrong about herself because she didn’t fit how he saw her, that she chose the wrong moment in time to question herself. She had finally felt like her world had settled and stopped spinning off its axis when she’d gathered the courage to come out to her family and his reaction had sent her spinning out all over again. Made her feel crazy and broken. She can’t help but hate him just a bit for that. 

“Hey babe,” Emmy says, rounding the corner, stopping when she sees Tessa and her dad. She isn’t even sure Emmy would recognize that it’s Tessa’s father standing three feet from her in front of the ice cream. They’ve never met. Tessa doesn’t really have many photos of him she keeps on display and Emmy has fully respected Tessa’s desire not to talk about him. 

But bless Emmy’s ability to read a situation. It only takes an instant for Emmy to recognize the look of discomfort on Tessa, the tension in her shoulders. Emmy comes up next to her and slides her hand into Tessa’s, giving it a quick squeeze, a silent  _ are you alright?  _

Tessa swallows down the lump that’s formed in her throat and wills the weight pressing down on her chest to release. This isn’t how she wanted to spend her Tuesday when she told Emmy she was craving fajitas. She looks between Emmy and her dad, who she notices has tensed since Emmy approached. She doesn’t miss the slight clench in his jaw when he looks at their joined hands. 

“Dad,” Tessa starts, like ripping off a bandaid. “This is Emmy.” 

Her dad sticks out his hand for Emmy to shake, and Tessa doesn’t miss the fact that with the shopping basket in her other hand Emmy has to let go of Tessa’s hand in order to take it. She gives Tessa’s hand a tight, reassuring squeeze before she does though. 

“Jim Virtue,” he says, clearing his throat, sounding every bit a lawyer meeting a client and not a father meeting his daughter’s partner. And Tessa is fairly certain he knows that’s exactly who Emmy is. She isn’t sure how much, if anything, her brothers have shared with him—she knows they respect her decision not to be involved with him—but she thinks the “babe” and the handhold were pretty clear. 

“Emmy Snow,” Emmy says, beaming her bright sunny smile right through her own discomfort. Tessa can tell it’s forced by the tightness around her eyes, but otherwise she seems her regular charming self.

Her dad nods before looking Emmy up and down, like he’s appraising her. It doesn’t help, Tessa thinks, that Emmy’s hair is piled in what is maybe a bun, but is more or less a knot of curls on top of her head, and she’s wearing her favourite painted muse sweater, line drawings of three nude female figures on the front, with sweats and clogs. She looks every bit the scruffy artist Tessa knows she can be and she can tell her dad disapproves.

“I know who you are,” her dad says, his voice doesn’t sound as harsh as his words, though it’s still not a warm greeting. “We saw you on TV, in the CBC Moulin Rouge documentary, before the Olympics. You’re the choreographer.” 

He lets go of Emmy’s hand and she immediately slips it back into Tessa’s. Tessa squeezes hard, holds on tight, so tightly she knows Emmy’s fingertips are likely to turn purple. Emmy doesn’t even flinch next to her. She feels sick, like bile is rising in her throat and she wants to yell. She never wants to yell, she almost never gets mad, but she feels anger bubbling hot inside her. It isn’t fair.  _ You’re the choreographer _ . Fuck that. Fuck you, she thinks. She knows, can tell by how he’s looking at them, that he is fully aware who Emmy is to her. 

“Dad,” she says, trying hard to regulate her tone, her pitch, her breathing. “Emmy is my girlfriend. We live together.”  _ I love her.  _ But she doesn’t say that, because he doesn’t deserve to know that, to have that part of her.

He nods. She watches as his jaw clenches again and he swallows. She doesn’t know what he wants to say. She knows he wouldn’t say anything in public. But just the level of discomfort he’s displaying at her being herself, his discomfort at her happiness, is too much. The unease he has at seeing her hold hands with a woman, the woman she loves, breaks something in her. She can feel the tears forming and quickly blinks them away. 

He nods again, tilting his head towards Emmy. “It really was beautiful choreography, you did a wonderful job.” 

Emmy looks a bit stunned and Tessa feels the same. She didn’t expect the compliment and she wants to agree, but the lack of acknowledgement has her seething. Emmy is quiet for a moment, her hand shifting in Tessa’s before responding with a quiet, “Thank you.” 

They are all silent again, no one daring to move until her dad finally looks back at her, and when he smiles, it’s sad, regretful. “It was nice to see you, Tess.” It’s the first thing he’s said that sounded completely genuine. “And,” he pauses for a breath. “It was nice to meet you, Emmy.” 

**

Emmy slips the car keys out of Tessa’s purse as they walk through the parking lot, her other hand still tightly intertwined with Tessa’s. Abandoning their shopping basket at the end of an aisle, Emmy had led Tessa straight out of the store. She unlocks the car and Tessa goes to let go, expecting to walk around to the passenger side so that Emmy can drive them home, but Emmy opens the back door and guides her in, following after. 

Tessa is about to question what they are doing sitting in the back seat of her SUV when Emmy wraps her arms around her. Every emotion she’d been feeling, everything she was trying so hard not to let out bursts from her like the breaking of a dam. She cries into Emmy’s shoulder, big wracking sobs that overtake her whole body. Emmy holds her close and lets her cry, running a hand through her hair. 

As she cries and Emmy holds her up, she thinks about how unfair it is. She cries for herself now and her of years ago whose spirit was shattered by a man who was supposed to support her no matter what. She knows he meant it when he said it was good to see her, even that it was nice to meet Emmy, she could hear it in his voice. But his refusal to acknowledge her relationship cuts like a knife through her heart. The fact that he can’t get over himself long enough to just be happy for her. 

She can feel Emmy’s hands in her hair and her lips pressed against her head. She pulls away just enough to look at her and can see that her eyes are watery too. 

“I’m sorry,” Tessa says on a shuddery exhale. 

Emmy shakes her head. “Why? You did nothing wrong.” 

“I don’t think I can see him again,” she feels confident in her decision to cut him out of her life a few years ago. “It hurts too much.” 

Emmy pulls her in again, to hold her close. “I support that, completely. If it hurts you, it hurts me.” 

Tessa pulls back again, studies Emmy’s face. “It isn’t fair though, that I have all this family, these people that you don’t have and they are here but I’m cutting them out.” 

Emmy sighs and takes a deep breath. “No, baby, what isn’t fair is that your dad can’t love who you are, that he can’t respect your choices...that he can’t bring himself to acknowledge our fucking relationship because it isn’t what he wanted for you. That’s unfair.” 

Tessa shrugs, and tries to get her breathing controlled, wiping tears away on her sleeve. “I’m sorry,” she says again. 

“No,” Emmy says, swiping a thumb under Tessa’s eye to catch her tears. “Don’t be. Do you remember when we first met? At ballet camp? My mom had passed away six months before, but I didn’t tell you. I didn’t tell anyone there. Because you missed your mom so much and I didn’t want you to feel bad about missing her because I lost mine. Don’t feel bad about this because I don’t have my parents. You still deserve ones who love and respect every part of you.” She swallows, wiping at her own eyes. “I was lucky with my grandparents, how easily they accepted everything, accepted me. But I think for them,” she shrugs, “losing their daughter really put things in perspective… my being gay wasn’t really the worst thing that could happen. It sucks your dad can’t see that.”

“It does,” she says.

“Besides,” Emmy smiles. “I don’t think he approves of my sweater and that’s just bad taste.”

Tessa barks out a laugh, it’s wet, still teary but big, it surprises her. “Terrible taste,” she says. “It’s a great sweater.” 

**

Emmy is on the phone, pacing back and forth in the next room. She always has to be doing something when she’s on the phone, she says if she isn’t moving, or driving, or doing something with her hands she can’t concentrate on what’s being said. Tessa is trying to finish off some emails and isn’t trying to listen, but can’t help but notice the excited lilt to Emmy’s voice as the conversation continues. 

“Really? That’s awesome, I’d love that so much,” she can hear Emmy say. There is a bit of a pause and then her voice falls, the excitement replaced by trepidation. “I’m going to have to think about it though,” there’s another pause. “Yeah, exactly. I just don’t know how I will manage being open about that without potentially…” there’s another pause. “Yeah.” 

She tries to focus back on her emails as she hears Emmy murmur a goodbye, repeating that she’ll think about  _ it. _ She comes back out to the living room biting at her bottom lip, looking unsure if she wants to say something. Tessa raises her eyebrows at her curiously and pats the space beside her on the couch. 

“That was Steph,” Emmy says, moving Tessa’s laptop out of the way and sitting down next to her. Tessa doesn’t push, waits for her to continue. “She’s friends with someone from  _ Room Magazine  _ and they’re having a Q & A of Queer artists for pride week,” Emmy shrugs. “She said they were interested in having me and would be contacting me this week with details.” 

“That’s amazing, Em! Why didn’t you say yes?” Tessa says, furrowing her brow.

“Because it’s a pretty well known publication, Tess. And there are going to be questions about my inspiration, my support system and what it’s been like working as a dancer and choreographer as a queer person. Navigating everything, especially now that I’ve gained a bit more of a following since the Olympics and the music video, my work with NBS… and you’re a huge part of all of that. I’m not sure how to talk about it all honestly without--” 

“Without outing me,” Tessa finishes for her, taking a deep breath and closing her eyes. She hates that she’s Emmy’s hesitation on this. It feels like there’s a vice squeezing her heart. It sucks. 

Emmy shrugs and sighs. “Yeah. Even if I don’t name you, there will be questions… there will be people who know.” 

She knows Emmy’s right. They’ve been seen together enough, have been in each other’s social media enough, that if Emmy were to do an interview specifically talking about being gay that her connection with Tessa would be obvious. Seeing her dad had shattered her confidence a bit, but she’s still been good with being a little more open on social media or mentioning the prospect of an entirely non specified partner (she always makes sure to keep her language vague and gender neutral when answering questions about her live life) but she isn’t sure she’s ready to publicly be out. For it to be a  _ thing.  _ She still thinks of her and Emmy’s relationship as precious and wants to keep it wrapped up safely as long as she can. 

“I’m sorry,” Tessa says, it comes out as a whisper. She’s afraid if she says it too loudly it will break something precious in the room. “Fuck,” she shakes her head. “I’m so sorry.” 

Emmy shrugs again, then leans her head against Tessa’s shoulder. “It’s… it’s… fuck. Tess, it’s okay. Okay?” she sighs, it’s heavy and Emmy sinks into her with the weight of it and Tessa knows it means it’s not okay, not really. She knows how hard it is for Emmy not being able to be as open and honest as she wants to. It’s hard for Tessa too. “I understood going into this that you aren’t...that you can’t and I understand why. I always have. And especially since the other week with your dad...I can’t ask that of you, I won’t.” 

Tessa leans her head against Emmy’s, looking around their shared space. The perfect mix of Tessa’s clean and classic style and Emmy’s warm and eclectic. The neat, organized, white bookshelves reaching up to the ceiling on one wall, Emmy’s dancer photos mixed with her favourite skating ones—she caved and put up three. Then on the side table she spots her absolute favourite photo. Jordan snapped it at the cottage last summer, when she and Emmy had only been together for six months. They are sitting, thighs pressed together, heads close together thrown back in joyous laughter. It’s perfect. All of this is. It’s all she wants. She’s so happy. She doesn’t want the weight of this secret to ruin them.

“Say yes,” she says, closing her eyes. 

“Tess,” Emmy starts, taking a deep breath. “I...I don’t know...I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

“At least promise you won’t say no because of me.” 

“Okay,” she puts her arm around Tessa. “I promise.”

**

She’s not really nervous. She thought she’d feel more nervous getting ready to share such a large part of herself with the world, but she isn’t. It feels right, it feels good. They, her and Emmy, have been trying hard for the past few months to be fairly open with their relationship, it would be too hard to hide with living together anyways, and it wouldn’t be fair to either of them. But in public, Tessa has still refrained from mentioning a significant other and she has never mentioned being gay, not more than a very subtle implication here and there — never gendering when talking about a potential partner, when doing an interview and being asked to cast her own version of  _ Blades of Glory  _ only picking female leads and questioning why there ought to be a male love interest. She’s been determined to keep her private life private, but the more and more she becomes a public figure, the more she realizes some stories are important to share. 

She wouldn’t ever want it to be a big thing, no big announcement… she isn’t going to call up Ellen to come out on TV (even if Scott had so excitedly suggested it) but she thinks what she has in mind is perfect. 

Anastasia knows Tessa, the true Tessa. And it makes sense for her to use this opportunity to be openly herself. It feels perfect, talking to an openly gay athlete—one who privately helped Tessa with some of her own questions and fears after Sochi, and vice versa, since she’d just been through her own crisis of identity at the same time—about her own sexuality and relationship. There is also the fact that the podcast will air in June and pride month seems fitting. 

So, she talks to Ana before they start recording her episode of  _ Players Own Voice. _ They sip on their coffees and Tessa talks about moving in with Emmy, shows off pictures of their new Toronto condo, gushes about how happy she is, even if things haven’t always been perfectly smooth. It’s more open than she normally is with people she’s not extremely close to, very few people get to be in that inner circle, but Anastasia is her friend, even if they don’t necessarily hang out or talk outside work related things now, they’ve shared very personal parts of themselves at very vulnerable times. She trusts Ana implicitly. 

“You’re sure you want to do this, Tess?” Ana asks, as she sets up all the equipment. 

“How’d you do it? How did you know it was the right time?”

“I felt I needed to talk about my depression, to share my story and those two things really went hand in hand. I also didn’t have the same kind of following as you, or a Scott and a love story penned for me by people who don’t know me. It’s more complicated for you.” 

“It is in a way, but it’s not as bad as it was, lots of people have caught on, I think,” she pauses, taking a deep breath and smiling at her friend. She thinks that’s true, that’s where she’s been leading people the past few weeks. “Your story is inspirational,” she says with a small smile. “I’m happy you shared it, and I want to be able to share just enough to help someone too.” 

“You will, should we start?” 

Tessa nods. “Yeah, just not a big deal about it. I don’t want it to be an announcement...it’s just one facet of my personality, but I don’t want being gay to become who I am in the public, just because I happen to love an amazing woman… there’s more… so much of who people see me as is already so tied up in another person.” 

Anastasia nods, “It’s a part of the story but it isn’t the whole story.” 

**

Her interview with Anastasia ends up being an easy back and forth and Tessa only has to remind herself a few times to be more open. Years of training herself to talk around questions, to only offer the smallest bits of personal information is a habit that is hard to break. But Anastasia talks to her like a friend, and Tessa finds herself shooting back her own questions, interested in learning more about the person across from her. She kind of regrets not taking her up on the offer to record in a more comfortable space, instead choosing the more formal option of a CBC studio. Classic Tessa, she thinks.

She knows she can seem cool and calculated when she stops to think after each question, carefully stringing just the right set of words together to say enough but not too much, to sound thoughtful and intelligent but not pretentious. She’s always been afraid of saying the wrong thing or saying something that will give herself away, something that will peel away at her carefully constructed public image and let everyone see she’s a fraud.

When they were younger, she used to think about her answers for so long, agonizing over the right words that the interview would be long over when she’d lean over to Scott and whisper that she should have said  _ this.  _ He would shake his head and say, often with the slightest hint of irritation,  _ well say that next time then _ . Sometimes he would get frustrated and tell her that she cared too much about what other people thought, that it didn’t matter. He never understood why it did matter, to her, how others perceived her. 

She’s gotten better over the years, at not spending so long in thought, she’s learned that saying something is better than nothing. She had to become faster in her answers, to have an easily accessible stash of phrases to fill the space, because Scott has always had a compulsion to fill silence without thought. And often his quick answers, where his mouth forms the words before his brain has a chance to process the question has led them—mostly her—too close to the truth to be comfortable, exposed more than she’s willing to share. She feels disingenuous, sometimes, hiding these parts of herself from the public and that hurts, to feel like she’s a fake. 

Except she knows now she isn’t. She’s cautious, and she protects herself and those she loves. Her private life isn’t for public consumption even though people think it is. Finding the perfect balance is hard. How much should she share to be honest and genuine, to be inspiring and help someone who may be struggling, versus how much to keep close to the chest to hold a little bit of herself and keep it just for her. Growing up in a sport where she was constantly putting herself on display, being subjected to the judgement of others, being vulnerable and expressing herself through her artistry only to be critiqued… there are some parts of her that belong to judges and to audiences, too many parts, but there are other parts that are just for her. 

She tells Anastasia this as they talk, her struggle with how much to share. 

“I’ve always been a very private person,” she laughs a bit at herself, wondering somehow if her desperation to remain private just created more room for rumours. “I feel like I say that a lot, like it’s an excuse but it’s true.” 

“I totally get that,” Ana says. “Especially when you’re in the public the way that you are. You don’t want your struggles to be on display, it makes you very vulnerable and you never know how it will be received.” 

Tessa nods, before realizing that no one will be able to see her. “Yeah, but it doesn’t mean that those struggles aren’t there. And I think I need to balance that a bit. I’m human, I struggle, I make mistakes… I just don’t post them on Instagram.”

“You did struggle, personally, after the Olympics, didn’t you?” 

Tessa nods again, before saying, “Yeah. I felt a bit purposeless. I wasn’t sure what I was meant to do with myself without chasing the goal of a gold medal. And I’ve always been an all or nothing, have to be the best kind of person. So I was taking on so many things and trying to be the best at all of them, which isn’t realistic. I hate feeling inadequate and I was giving myself migraines with stress all while doing everything that came my way. I felt like I wasn’t being a good enough partner or business person or friend or daughter. Like I was trying to be the best at everything and ended up failing at all of it instead. I know in my heart that isn’t true, but some days it felt like that. Especially in my personal relationships, I so often felt like I was failing. So much of my life had been this somewhat selfish pursuit of gold so I felt like I had no idea what I was meant to do.”

“I’m sure that isn’t true though,” Ana smiles softly at her. “I’m sure your family and friends didn’t feel that way. But that’s why they call it the Olympic come down right? You’re on top of the world and then you crash, but it’s better now?” 

Tessa shrugs. “It is, but it’s still not perfect. I still feel like I hold myself to a higher standard than what might be healthy. But I’m getting better at taking it easy on myself while still striving to excel,” she pauses to take a breath. It’s a strange thing being so open about her personal struggles, something that she’d been trained not to reveal publicly in the past. It feels liberating though. “I think that for me the big crash really happened last summer. It was hard, especially since Scott and I were away so long on tours following the Olympics and being away from loved ones for so long, that really exasperated things I think, and now things are finally settling... I’m just finally climbing back up, and settling down but I’m still working on it. A lot of it is kind of this figuring out what I want to be when I grow up, but at thirty instead of twenty and it’s a little stressful.” 

Anastasia smiles at her and nods and Tessa knows this is the moment. She’s making sure this is what Tessa wants to do. Tessa nods in return, biting her bottom lip. She focuses on the way the light casts her shadow against the grey formica of the desk, the shadow Tessa dancing across the surface as she nervously swivels in her chair. 

“The Olympic come down is hard for a lot of athletes, but you have a strong support system with your family and have been helped by having a supportive partner, not just Scott who we all know is your biggest cheerleader, but a partner partner, your life partner at home has helped you through?” 

Tessa takes a deep breath. “Yes. She’s been amazing, truly. I really don’t think I’d be where I am without her. Her support is unwavering. She's been so incredibly patient, even through the Olympics and I’m so incredibly grateful. Honestly, I could probably gush for the rest of the interview, she really truly is the best.” 

And with that she lets out her breath and feels all the tension she didn’t know she was holding release. She looks up at Anastasia, who is behind her microphone smiling widely at Tessa, wearing a distinct look of pride. 

“I can see why, you really have a great girlfriend. Also, I’ve met her and she’s ridiculously beautiful and super sweet and funny. I’m actually kind of jealous. It’s really not fair to the world how pretty you both are. I’m going to gush too because your girlfriend is awesome.” 

Tessa laughs, her big body consuming laugh, throwing her head back. “I will let her know she’s got options.” 

“I’ll give you my number to pass along,” Ana says with a wink and her own big belly laugh. 

And then they continue like it was nothing. Like Tessa didn’t just admit in an interview that she has a girlfriend, that it won’t be very clear to all who listen that she’s gay. 

**

“But Jo, did you read this one? It’s from Narcity,” Tessa shifts her laptop closer so she can read the article out loud to her sister, taking a deep breath before beginning. It’s a calming in and out to a count of four, to try and control the onslaught of emotions she’s been feeling. “ _ Virtue, who recently admitted in an interview to having a long term girlfriend — who may in fact predate her Pyeongchang Olympic win — had long been rumoured to have been involved with her ice dance partner, Moir. For years the duo has dispelled the rumours in the media with the same tired lines of being “best friends” and nothing more while their behaviour continued to say otherwise. The pair played the are they, aren’t they narrative for years and the whole world fell for it as they skated to gold.”  _ She pauses, willing herself to take another breath, focusing for a moment on the little potted aloe by the window. 

She can hear Jordan’s steady breathing on the other end, a slight shuffling, like she’s readjusting to prepare herself for what’s next. Tessa continues. “ _ Virtue could have easily dispelled the rumours by coming out, but allowed the narrative to live on so that she could cash in on their popularity. She claims to want to be a role model but instead of going into the Olympics as a hero for LGBTQ kids and athletes alike she chose to keep the popular narrative alive and cash in on the opportunities that arose.”  _

“I know it sucks,” Jordan says through the phone, her voice quiet, tender. Tessa knows Jordan has been reading everything that’s come out since last weekend. “But it isn’t their call to say someone should have come out when they weren’t ready… that isn’t a fair thing to say. They don’t know you or what you went through to get where you are Tess.” 

“It’s true though,” Tessa breathes in through her nose, biting at her lip and blinking quickly to try to stop the tears threatening to fall. “What the article says isn’t wrong. I knew that we’d be better off both if we wanted to win and for opportunities after if we at least played a bit into that narrative.” 

She can hear Jordan’s heavy sigh on the other end of the phone. She can picture how she’d be closing her eyes and rubbing the bridge of her nose, her shoulders moving up and down with the force of the sigh, as she thinks carefully on her next words.

Tessa knew there would be fallout, she knew that there’d be reactions from both the media and fans alike once the podcast aired. Things don’t happen in a vacuum. She couldn’t publicly admit to having a girlfriend and expect everything to continue on as it had yesterday. Even though a little part of her had hoped that people would just say, “Oh, that’s nice,” shrug and move on with their lives, that of course isn’t what happens.

She had some time to prepare for what kinds of things might be said about her. She and Emmy talked through it all. Although Tessa would have loved to surprise Emmy with this revelation, would have loved to see the way her face would light up to hear Tessa mention their relationship in an interview, to understand what that means, she also knew she couldn’t spring that on Emmy like that — only knowing once it’s already out their for public consumption — that just wouldn’t be fair. This is Emmy’s life too. So, a week before the podcast was set to air (the first of June) Tessa shared it with Emmy. 

Emmy was sitting in her pajamas, hair in a loose braid, cross legged on one of the kitchen stools looking over some dance videos. She was making notes on the body mechanics of two injured dancers she would be working with. Tessa slipped her computer in front of Emmy, with an early copy of the podcast Anastasia had sent her and asked Emmy if she could listen to it. She did, right away of course, pushing her work off to the side and slipping Tessa’s headphones into her ears. She’d cried, a disbelieving smile creeping its way up to her eyes before asking Tessa countless times if she was sure, if she was ready. 

“Yes,” Tessa said, kissing her. She didn’t know if this was entirely true, if she’d ever feel truly  _ ready  _ to share so much of herself with the public. Like she was flaying herself, stripping herself of her protective layer and being left completely exposed and bare in front of the whole world. But, she  _ wanted  _ to. She wanted to do this for Emmy, for their relationship and for herself. 

Besides, as she assured Emmy, it’s what she’d been working up to. Offering just enough of a snapshot of her personal life, much of it beginning to hint towards her relationship status, including never gendering potential partners in interviews, only using terms like partner and significant other. While she’s aware that it is her life and she can share as much or as little as she’s comfortable with she’s also aware that her and Scott’s whole career, their entire popularity has been based on a very heterosexual narrative and “chemistry”. So, she settled on a slow leak that’s been ongoing for the last few months, including maybe her most pointed post. A #throwback video from tour choreography, it was a moment that Marie captured during their instudio sessions. In the video Emmy is demonstrating Scott’s part for him as he watches nodding along to the instruction. Her hands on Tessa’s body lingering maybe a little longer than necessary to demonstrate and Tessa leans into her touch. The video is fun and it shows the process they went through to create the dances they did, but it also borders on being very flirty. 

She hopes she’s offered just enough that people won’t feel cheated by the narrative that was presented to them at the Olympics. As much as she loves Scott and loves the art they can create together, she isn’t the characters she portrays on ice. 

Together, she and Emmy decided that when the podcast aired that they would take some time to themselves. They planned to head to the cottage and both go on a social media hiatus for a few days in the aftermath. For the most part their plan worked out well, she timed it so that she could retweet the podcast as soon as it came up and then turned off her phone once they arrived. They spent the weekend enjoying each other’s company -- Emmy’s new job, though wonderful, has taken a lot of her time and Tessa has been busy with speaking engagements and brand endorsements, so they haven’t had a lot of time just them recently. With her head pillowed on Emmy’s chest, Emmy’s fingers gently running though her hair as they lounge in the cover of the makeshift cabana next to the beach, listening to the waves lapping against the shoreline, they talked about what might happen when they get back to the real world. 

“Best case,” Emmy started, her hand stilling in Tessa’s hair. “No one will care, or even notice and we can go on living our lives.” 

Tessa traced the freckles along Emmy’s collar bone, illuminated by the streaks of fading sunlight sneaking into the cabana. She hummed her agreement against Emmy’s chest. 

“And worst case,” Tessa felt Emmy’s chest expand beneath her as she took in a deep breath, pausing while trying to push the right words to the surface. “Worst case is you have an inbox full of hate from a bunch of homophobes… and well that would really suck but their opinions don’t matter anyways.” 

She knows that there will be people who hate her, who share all the ways in which they believe she is doing things wrong no matter what it is that she does, so there is no winning there. She knows what Emmy says is true. The worst that could happen is that a bunch of people whose support she wouldn’t want anyways -- not if they are against who she is as a person -- don’t want to support her anymore. And no, those opinions don’t matter. It doesn’t mean that the idea doesn’t still sting. 

Now, back to reality, away from the protective bubble of the cottage and with Emmy back to work, Tessa sits alone on their living room couch watching the blinking cursor on the screen of her laptop as she reads more than a half dozen articles that have sprouted up over the past few days since the podcast aired. It isn’t like she didn’t expect them, but seeing all the tabs in her browser laid out in front of her like this is a little overwhelming. Some of the articles are pure clickbait with titles like  _ Tessa Virtue Has a New Dance Partner and You’ll Never Guess Who  _ and  _ One Half of Canadian Sweethearts Virtue-Moir is Gay and It’s Not Who You Think  _ (admittedly that one had made her laugh because Scott is super suportive and has a fair few friends in the LGBT community, but he is one of the most hetero people she knows). There are also articles that are mostly positive, congratulating her for coming out and hoping that one day she’ll share more of her story, one even champions her as an inspiration for LGBTQ youth in sport and in figure skating in particular (making her slightly uncomfortable because she doesn’t view herself this way, she’s never been publically out, not when they were competitive so she never had to deal with the struggles of a lot of other openly gay athletes have). There are other articles that she’s trying to ignore, the ones that talk about how she ruined the Virtue-Moir fairytale or talk about how she doesn’t seem like a lesbian -- she stumbled across one blog claiming she only said she had a girlfriend because she wants attention, as if coming out would gain her some kind of internet clout. 

Then there is the one she’s reading to Jordan, which she can’t deny hurt to read. Because she realizes it’s true. It isn’t the whole truth, but enough of it rings true that it causes a tightening sense of anxiety in her chest that she has to struggle to breathe through. She and Emmy weren’t together during the lead up to the Olympic Games, though the feelings were there. And she can admit to herself that even if it weren’t for knowing that letting the fantasy of Canada’s sweethearts live would help their chances, she knows she wasn’t in the right place to come out. Not then. 

“Sam,” Jordan says, her voice is steady and reassuring, in the same way it’s been for her since they were kids and she wished her luck on her first competition and when she’d help her with her math homework. “You did nothing wrong. It’s your life. You’re the one living it.” 

Tessa nods, even though Jordan can’t see her. “Yeah, I know that. You know… I knew people would have a lot to say… but I still hoped… you know?”

“Yeah. Oh! Did you see the one about how they would have guess Scott were gay?” 

Tessa snorts. “Yeah… I mean that’s such a ridiculous stereotype. Just because he’s a male figure skater and let me talk him into a deep V… I actually can’t believe the deep V and sparkly costumes made it into this discussion.” 

“The good ol’ deep V. Have they ever seen Scott at a costume fitting though?” Jordan laughs and it makes Tessa smile that they can make light of this whole thing. It makes it just that much easier to be able to talk it through with her sister and see the humour in some of it. “I’m not sure if that is more or less ridiculous than the ones that have been saying that Scott had no idea and you blindsided him with the interview. How could you break his heart like that and with your choreographer no less!” 

Tessa is shaking her head, a smile already forming on her face, her skin pulling tight where tears have dried on her cheeks. “I’m pretty sure that Scott spent two years trying to set us up, casually leaving us alone in the dance studio and suggesting we watch movies together. If anything we should thank him for pushing me and getting us here.” 

“He’s a good friend,” Jordan says. 

“Yeah,” she sighs. “I think the most out there ones are the ones that say he broke my heart and now I can’t even trust men. I don’t think people understand how being a lesbian works. It’s so asinine.” 

“But the majority of what people are saying is good, Sam.” She can hear Jordan moving around, there’s a low crackle and her voice sounds far away for a second before it comes back as she puts Tessa on speaker phone, probably so that she can get up and get ready for the rest of her day. “There is so much support for you, and for Emmy too actually.”

Tessa takes a deep breath, putting her computer on the coffee table in front of her and uses the hand not holding her phone to rub at her temple. She knows that she’d relaxed on social media and been a bit more open with her life but other than hints or posts that could potentially be considered platonic she had tried to allow Emmy some privacy, as much as she could. She knew that eventually the connection would be made but she was maybe naive enough to think that the media would leave her girlfriend out of it. Instead she’s found at least four articles with Emmy’s face in them. She’s sure there will be more. 

It isn’t that she doesn’t want people to know Emmy is her girlfriend. She is so very proud of Emmy and everything she has accomplished. She is an amazing woman with her own strong following in the dance community and is a public person in her own right. But as much as Tessa believed she had mentally prepared for this she doesn’t think that she’d really ever be prepared for all that would come along with coming out. She’s panicking to put it lightly. Fighting years and years of instinct to hide all aspects of her personal life. She’s also struggling against that ingrained instinct to latch onto every negative comment, even when there are one thousand positives. She’s seen what has been said in the past about Scott’s significant others (even if she wasn’t always as empathetic about it as she should have been) and she worries for what might be said about Emmy. 

It’s that that has her checking her phone every few minutes to make sure Emmy is okay. Photos from Emmy’s Instagram have popped up in Buzzfeed and Huffington post articles and have been shared from there. There are even some fans on twitter making threads of all the photos and places Emmy and Tessa have been spotted together — like Emmy in the audience at the Walk of Fame ceremony or Tessa and Emmy spotted out together in Toronto. Information that people seem to have held onto for months about all the times she and Emmy have been in the same city (when she had visited Montreal or when Emmy was in London or before the move when they’d been in Toronto at the same time) has been cropping up. She hates that Emmy’s privacy —and her own —is being violated. 

“I can’t stop worrying that I made a mistake, Jo.” Tessa rubs at her eyes. “And then I feel like I’m being ridiculous and worrying over something I did to myself. And really, I’m the one that led everyone to Emmy. I mean, normal people don’t hide their girlfriends.”

“Normal people also don’t have the same kind of public scrutiny put on their personal relationships. It is okay for you to feel vulnerable and a little raw right now.” 

**

It’s a perfect wedding on a warm late June afternoon. Everything is beautiful and so perfectly suited to the bride and groom. The ceremony takes place in his church, the one he grew up going to, the one where he was baptized. Tessa stands next to him, along with his older brothers at the altar as he watches Kacey walk down the aisle in her ivory dress. Tessa can see the tears welling up in his eyes, and feel the joy radiating off him in waves of heat, she watches as he takes in a deep breath in an attempt to contain his emotions. Tessa can see the love pouring off him, like an aura the colour of the sunset and she’s so overwhelmingly happy for him. 

Seeing him blink back tears as Kacey finally makes it to him, as her father shakes his hand, Tessa can feel her own eyes begin to water. She looks out and scans the pews to find Emmy, sitting next to Kate and Jordan on one side and Scott’s brothers’ wives and their children on the other. Emmy has one of the littlest nephews perched on her knee, letting him chew on her finger to keep him distracted while his mom keeps his older siblings still. Emmy smiles brightly at her when Tessa catches her eye and mouths  _ I love you _ , before the priest begins the ceremony. 

Tessa tries to pay attention to what’s being said, but mainly just watches Scott and Kacey, her heart fluttering at the love she can feel surrounding them. She’s so incredibly happy for both of them, that they found each other. She’s so proud of Scott for how much he’s learned and grown these past couple years. She knows that he’s going to make a wonderful husband and one day (soon) an amazing father. She loves him so much and her heart is full to bursting with the happiness that she feels for them. 

When it’s time for the bride and groom to kiss she looks away to find Emmy again amongst the sea of faces all looking toward the happy couple. Emmy sweeps a stray hair away from her face — Tessa’s had asked her friend Kelly to come to London this morning to help the two of them with their hair and and she had worked Emmy’s hair into a beautiful series of wrap around braids, but unruly strands still found their escape. She has her own set of tears glistening in her eyes when she meets Tessa’s and Tessa is struck all over again with how much she loves this woman. She’s so full of love and joy that she really truly does burst and it all comes out in the radiant smile she flashes. 

This is happily ever after, she thinks. Scott is getting married to the perfect woman for him, someone down to earth, someone just as involved in sport who understands that kind of competitive drive and isn’t afraid to challenge it — to challenge him— and who loves unconditionally and unrestrained. She also loves country music, so that doesn’t hurt with Scott either. She’s enough like Scott that they understand each other, with enough opposition to balance him out, so they fit perfectly together. And Tessa, she has Emmy, and there is very little else she could ask for. 

She won’t lie and say that the past year and change since publicly coming out have been easy, they’ve had their difficult moments, but it’s all been worth it to be here today.

Even when she’s away, Emmy is the brightest part of her day. Almost two and a half years together and she still lights up when she sees Emmy’s name on her screen with a call or text when she’s out of town for work, or even just when either of them have a long day and haven’t been able to see each other or talk for hours. She still feels sparks when Emmy pulls her in and kisses her deeply, one hand tangling in her hair, the other wrapping around her waist. Even when she’s mad at her, she loves her. They aren’t the same person and don’t always agree on things, but they’re both always able to see and acknowledge the other’s side and work things out as quickly as possible, always together. 

The months following coming out were both liberating and difficult all at the same time, but through it all she had Emmy. Eventually, knowing that the information was out already, it started to feel like a weight lifted off her shoulders -- even with the select few negative comments-- as she was able to be a little more relaxed and open with her life. She confirmed her relationship with Emmy on her social media two weeks after the podcast with a photo of her and Emmy as kids, holding hands at the dance studio, followed by a picture of them sitting side by side on the deck at the cottage, holding hands, looking at each other with such a level of adoration that Tessa wonders if it isn’t maybe too personal to post. But she picked it because of the handhold parallel and because she loves the unfilteredness of it, with their bright smiles and windswept hair and sun kissed cheeks. She captioned it “Is this a #glowup?” 

After that she was able to live her life mostly for herself. She brought up Emmy’s name in interviews when it was comfortable to do so, unafraid of what people might do or say, but otherwise kept her personal life private. She and Emmy together were able to find the balance between giving enough to feel like they weren’t hiding and not giving too much as to keep private things for themselves. She’s so incredibly relieved and happy to be able to attend her best friend’s wedding with her girlfriend without having to worry the entire time about what those around her might think about it, and Emmy has fit in so seamlessly amongst both their families. 

**

“Are you happy?” Tessa says into his shoulder as they dance together at the reception, as they move in time with each other in a hold that feels like home. She feels light and warm in his embrace. 

“So happy.” She can feel his smile against the top of her head. “It’s almost better than three Olympic gold medals.” 

She can feel her laugh building in her chest and bubbling out as she takes a step back to look at him. “It better be.” 

“This is the best feeling.” He smiles. “I really do feel like I won.” 

“You did. I’m so proud of you.” She puts her hands on his shoulders as she starts to move gently to the beat of the next song, finding the music as it thrums through her. She feels the dance floor shift a bit underneath them, where it lays over the soft damp grass of the Moir yard. If it weren’t for the great big white tent, large enough to house all two hundred and something guests, Tessa would be able to catch a glimpse of the rink from here. 

White lights strung between the polls supporting the tent twinkle above them like little stars. At least that’s how they look in the pictures she managed to snap while she watched Kacey and Scott share their first dance, as if the stars shone for them. She thought she’d feel weird seeing him dance with someone else, when that had always been her place in his life. But since they decided to retire last fall their friendship has only strengthened and she knows she holds more of a place in his life than just skating partners. Kacey fits perfectly in his arms, though she’s nearly as tall as him, he holds her in such a way that she looks delicate. 

“How about you?” Scott says, as he twirls her towards the end of the song -- she promised him two songs before she gave him back to his wife. “Are you happy?” 

“Incandescently.” She smiles, it pulls at her cheeks and crinkles the corner of her eyes. She stops and scans the room to find Emmy, who is currently dancing with Kacey, standing on her toes to twirl her -- even though Kacey is a good 4 inches taller. Her smile can only widen. Kacey laughs as she’s thrown off balance trying to duck under Emmy’s arm. Emmy puts her hands on Kacey’s waist to steady her and the two of them are laughing together. Tessa can’t lie, she loves the friendship the two of them have been able to forge in the past few years, even if half of it is rooted in their gripes over being the partners of Canada’s sweethearts. 

The song has changed and slowed and Kacey and Emmy are still laughing as Emmy tries to lead Kacey on the other side of the dance floor. She doesn’t think it is possible to love this woman any more than she does. Her laugh lights up the room around her and everyone nearby joins in. Her mess of auburn hair is half out of her updo from dancing and she’s ditched her heels somewhere, informing Tessa that she’s gone quite enough years in uncomfortable shoes (Tessa had warned her she should wear them in before trying to keep them on all day). 

She’s so fucking in love that the feeling swells her chest. She wants to spend the rest of her life watching Emmy laugh and dance. Loving her and being loved by her is one of the biggest accomplishments of Tessa’s life and she wants to make sure Emmy knows it. 

When the song winds to an end, she gives Scott a kiss on the cheek and looks over again at Emmy and Kacey and some more of their friends and family. “We better go get our girls.” 

Scott snorts and nods. “My wife might like Emmy more than me.” 

Tessa can’t help but laugh, trying to cover her mouth to keep the sound inside. “That’s not hard,” she says with a wink in his direction. 

Together, the two of them work their way towards their respective partners and before she knows it, she’s sitting back at their table with Emmy leaning her head on her shoulder as they watch Scott and Kacey dancing, completely carefree and very much happy in love. Scott is trying to teach Kacey a move that Tessa thinks may be an approximation of an old piece of choreography when they did hip hop choreo with Emmy’s friend Sam. Kacey keeps laughing at what, in his completely excited beyond himself (and maybe a bit tipsy) looks mostly like flailing. She laughs and buries her face in his shoulder. 

“I want this.” Tessa takes a deep breath and turns her body towards Emmy’s. “I want this with you.” 

Emmy’s eyebrows knit together as she tilts her head to the side taking Tessa in, trying to read her underlying thoughts. “A wedding?” 

“Yeah.” Tessa swallows any nerves she may have had, finding they go down easily because this feels right. “I want to marry you.” 

She takes Emmy’s hands in hers and watches as Emmy’s eyes light up. She can see the twinkling lights reflected in her eyes, like stars and it fills her with the same amount of awe and wonder she has looking at the night sky and fantasizing about what’s out there. Emmy smiles. Her lips slowly pushing their way up into a grin and then she laughs, just a little laugh as sweet and soft as fairy bells. “Did you just propose at your best friend's wedding?”

Oh fuck. She maybe just did. “Uh… kinda.” 

Emmy laughs a little louder now. “I love you but don’t you know it’s supposedly tacky to propose at someone else's wedding?”

“So is that a no?” 

At that Emmy leans forward, still smiling and kisses her. Emmy’s eyes are watering by the time she pulls away. “That’s a yes. It’s definitely a yes!” She rubs her nose against Tessa’s, still smiling. “I may have a ring I picked out for you back home… So, yes a thousand, million times, yes.” 

  
  


  
  
  



End file.
